# The Hovercraft's Golden Jubilee



## Pyan (Jul 24, 2009)

Touted as a go-anywhere, all-purpose vehicle, the hovercraft is nearly forgotten as a commercial option these days. The Science Museum,who own SRN-1, the prototype, don't even think it's important enough to put on display, leaving it tucked away in an old hanger in Wiltshire.

What went wrong?

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Hovercraft celebrated 50 years on


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## Vladd67 (Jul 27, 2009)

I guess they just were not good enough, or made a big enough profit after all Hoverspeed went into liquidation in 2006 and hovercrafts were replaced by seacats on the cross channel runs.


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## Urlik (Jul 29, 2009)

actually, Hovertravel still operate in competition to the fastcats between Ryde on the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth (Southsea for the hovercraft, but that is splitting hairs) and although the fastcat does the run in 15 minutes, the hovercraft has been doing the crossing in 7 minutes.


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## Rodders (Jul 29, 2009)

Years ago i worked with a guy (Phil) whose used to be an airline pilot. He and a partner had bought a hovercraft and wanted to use it in order to run a fast roverboat service on the Thames. I went out on it once. It was very exciting. Unfortunately, the guy didn't get the Government go ahead. Shame. It would've been great to look out of the bus and see that zipping by on the river. 

They still use them on the Isle of Wight.


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## Urlik (Jul 29, 2009)

Rodders said:


> They still use them on the Isle of Wight.


 
they sure do, as I posted before 

but then The Isle of Wight is the home of the hovercraft and was the major supplier of hovercraft tot he world at one time.

given the current theatres of battle, the hovercraft could see a revival for fast troop deployment and even as a mobile gun platform.

they are fantastic for use in deserts and can be heavily armoured

they are also perfect for amphibious assaults.


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## Rodders (Jul 29, 2009)

Yeah, sorry i diodn't see that Urlik. My mum and dad recently moved there and it was the first thing i noticed. 

Didn't the Russians develope the Hovercraft a lot during the Cold war?


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## Nik (Jul 30, 2009)

IIRC, took rather a long time for the US to cough up retrospective licence fees for those big MilSpec things the USMC use. UK.Gov was not amused, as that cash was supposed to fund UK development...

One big downer for hovercraft is noise. I've crossed Channel on one, and it was very, verry, verrrrry loud. 

Second downer was ride quality. Put kindly, it sucked. Craft just wasn't big enough. Three times the size would have been much smoother and quieter...

Five times the size would suit eg Polywell nuclear and the Atlantic run...

And, yes, the other big downer for hovercraft is fossil fuel consumption. Again, that improves with scaling. A whopper could carry bulky LPG or H2. Fusion would be better yet...


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## Urlik (Jul 31, 2009)

Rodders, I live in Ryde 
next time you are visiting your parents, send me a pm and maybe we could go for drink and a book discussion


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## Anthony G Williams (Aug 1, 2009)

Urlik said:


> given the current theatres of battle, the hovercraft could see a revival for fast troop deployment and even as a mobile gun platform.
> 
> they are fantastic for use in deserts and can be heavily armoured
> 
> they are also perfect for amphibious assaults.


Amphibious assault is their major use nowadays. The USMC uses the LCAC which can carry a 70-ton main battle tank at high speed from amphibious ships over the horizon and land on a much wider variety of shorelines than conventional landing craft. 

The Russians developed some very big assault hovercraft for independent use, the biggest being the *Zubr *class, which can carry 150 tons and are fitted with defensive gun armament. Also in service in China, Ukraine and Greece.

The other area they are useful is in transitional zones, for instance in arctic regions where they can skim over part-frozen water surfaces, or in marshlands. Small numbers of patrol and light transport hovercraft are in use in various countries which have such environments (and the British armed forces still use a few).

However, apart from the noise and running costs, they have other problems - especially going uphill. They have no means of getting a grip on the ground, in fact are virtually frictionless, so they keep trying to slide downhill. That does rather limit their usefulness. 

Basically, their particular mix of characteristics has only proven useful in very specialised circumstances.


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## Anthony G Williams (Aug 1, 2009)

Nik said:


> One big downer for hovercraft is noise. I've crossed Channel on one, and it was very, verry, verrrrry loud.
> 
> Second downer was ride quality. Put kindly, it sucked. Craft just wasn't big enough. Three times the size would have been much smoother and quieter...


I once crossed the Channel on a conventional ferry in rather rough weather (must have been on the limit for hovercraft operations) and recall watching a big SRN4 trying to catch up with us. It failed, and could only crawl along at the same speed. It kept disappearing behind the waves and the clouds of its own spray and was pitching and tossing something horrible. I was exceedingly glad that I was not on board.


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## Nik (Aug 1, 2009)

Well, IIRC, our hovercraft took a short-cut across Goodwin Sands. You could see the pale sands in the wave troughs.

Conditions were 'marginal'. Baggage was flying, trolley-dollys were 'bronco-riding', people were thrown from their seats, chuckin' their guts, slippin' & slidin'...

After we got off, we had to park-up for a while to recover...

The next year, IIRC, hovercraft were extended and fitted with seat-belts...


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