Portsmouth - Ryde hovercraft. Front page of CNN website today!

[Gary Fox]

In the 60s/70s light hovercraft were almost exclusively the preserve of the keen amateur; some of design decisions made in early craft were driven almost entirely by what was available and in any case what was desired for the most part was performance for racing above all else. Motorcycle and similar lightweight aircooled engines from snowmobiles etc, overdriving industrial fans in order to provide the desired performance at the cost of a lot of noise and premature blade failure, in order to feed high pressure skirts; none of which is remotely conducive to quiet operation. The likes of Barry Palmer of Sevtec lead the way toward quietness, use of 4 stroke engines, very large slow turning fans and propellors and low pressure skirts; his design ethos has lead to designs like the Otter which despite your doubt is very quiet, even at speed; it is possible to hold a normal conversation at cruising speed and there's no need for ear defenders.

Are they expensive used? How much would it set me back to obtain one? (Let's say the air cushion equivalent of a grubby but sailable Westerley Centaur..)

 

[penfold]

The market is so small that there's a 'how long is a piece of string' element, but a reasonably well built middle size Sevtec (16-18' or so) is likely to be 6-10k, dependent on equipment and spec. A bit less than the cost of the materials. An integrated design may be cheaper as there have been more built, but again the size of the market means you may wait a long time for one to appear.

 

[Martin_J]

Are they expensive used? How much would it set me back to obtain one? (Let's say the air cushion equivalent of a grubby but sailable Westerley Centaur..)

If you just fancy trying one, sbdy I know did this in Prague whilst on a stag weekend.

Prague hovercraft

Although that looks like you only get ten minutes.... Looks like a number of places in the UK might do similar. No connection to the website. It was just a Google search.

Hovercraft experience in the UK.

 

[grumpy_o_g]

I spent several years doing survey work with SRN6s in UAE and Iraq (Hoverwork was the commercial branch of Hovertravel who did the passengers routes). Reliability was very good and they could do 50 knots in a flat calm but as soon as the wind and sea got up the performance was severely restricted. Going sideways was quite normal as they have very little grip on the water.

A hovercraft pilot would probably claim he (she?) was going forwards whilst pointing in a different direction. A helicopter pilot told me that when I found he had trouble keeping a glider pointing forwards.

 

[Neeves]

You cannot expect to have a thread on YBW without anchors being mentioned

This is a US Navy hovercraft carrying vehicles




When we lived in HK, 80s and 90s, we lived on one of the islands and commuted daily to HK Island by hovercraft - it took around 100 passengers (but no military vehicles ). I think they have been retired now, the HK ones, for much bigger, conventional, fast ferries.

Jonathan

 

[PilotWolf]

A hovercraft pilot would probably claim he (she?) was going forwards whilst pointing in a different direction. A helicopter pilot told me that when I found he had trouble keeping a glider pointing forwards.

As a helicopter pilot, albeit long out of currency I was told the same!


W

 

[AntarcticPilot]

In the early 1980s, I was a volunteer with a group of Sea Scouts. They had, before I came along, built a one-person hovercraft from plans. We took it along to Scout Camp and I remember using it in a big field. The thing was controllable (just) but one poor lad froze while trying to drive it, and it ended up crashing into my first wife. She had a massive bruise and a mark on her leg that she took to her grave! Fortunately, it hit something else before her, and so it wasn't travelling as fast as it might have been.

 

[Slowboat35]

I had a half hour on one in Florida many years ago. Single engine, kneel-on like a wetbike, handlebars, throttle.
On water you have to get it 'on the step' by leaning right forward to exhaust air out of the back of the skirt for additional thrust (I think this was a feature of the single-engine layout and may not be typical)but once on the step could be flown very slowly. The rudders only affect where the nose points and not the direction of travel. Changing direction was by weight-shif to exhaust air from the skirt to act as a deflecting force, as was acceleration and slowing down afair. Turning at speed took a lot of room and judging the line of a turn would require practice. Reducing the throttle carefully resulted in skirt drag and a good braking effect, releasing it - bad idea - loses all lift and you'll have a crash-stop that'll chuck you over the front. Sustained sideways, even backwards flight was quite easy as were continuous pirouettes while scooting along in a straight line. All in all a bit like driving a car on sheet ice.
Great fun but made a jetski look like a favourite neighbour.

 

[andsarkit]

Late 1970s in Abu Dhabi. I'm the young lad on the left of the first photo. Travelling on the outside was cooler in the 45deg heat and I don't think health and safety had been invented. Flipflops and no ear defenders, so its not surprising that my hearing is no longer perfect. That's a string of geophones I am pulling in as we went up the beach.