A revolutionary new form of transport which can operate on sea and land has been officially launched in the Solent, off England’s south coast. The Hovercraft, which has been described as a cross between an aircraft, a boat and a land vehicle, was invented by boat-builder Christopher Cockerell.
Dubbed a “man-made flying saucer”, the hovercraft is propelled on a cushion of air created by its own fan power. It therefore hovers just above the waves at sea and avoids any irregular surfaces on land.
Christopher Cockerell, from Lowestoft, began working on a hovercraft model in the mid-1950s. He said he first came up with the idea when he was thinking how to make a boat go faster by reducing the amount of friction caused when it travels through the water.
He first tested the ‘hover’ theory using a cat food tin inside a coffee tin, with an industrial air blower and a pair of kitchen scales.
In 1955 he convinced the Ministry of Supply to back him but he was not able to commercially develop the product immediately as his idea had been placed on the government’s secret list because of its potential benefits to the military.
In 1959 Cockerell managed to get his idea removed from the secret list and formed the Hovercraft Development Company Ltd. He obtained funding from the National Research Development Council of £150,000 to develop the project.
A contract to build the first Hovercraft was awarded to Saunders Roe, the flying boat firm at Cowes, at the beginning of this year. The SRN-1, an experimental model, is 29 feet long and 24 feet wide and weighs 6,600lb.
Following today’s launch of the SRN-1 hovercraft in the Solent, Saunders Roe announced it is now planning a prototype up to ten times as big and weighing 40 tons.
The hovercraft, which has controls very similar to those in a helicopter, can reach speeds of up to 25-knots and it is hoped that at some stage in the future it will be able to cross the English Channel in as little as 20 minutes.
Courtesy BBC News
In context
Sir Christopher Cockerell died on 1 June 1999. Within weeks of its launch the Hovercraft crossed the English Channel from Calais to Dover. On 26 July it left Calais at 4.49am and arrived in Dover at 6.45am.
Since then more than 80 million people and 12 million cars have crossed the channel by hovercraft. The cross-channel service was stopped in October 2000 due to increased competition from ferries and the channel tunnel
The use of an air cushion to speed ships was considered as early as the 18th century.
Sir John Thornycroft got as far as patenting an early design in the mid 1870s but engines that produced enough power to make hovercrafts practical were not available until this century.
Hovercrafts are still widely used in areas where land surface is uneven or sea levels low.
There is a 700 page book, with 450 pictures called ‘On a Cushion of Air’, (available through Amazon, The Book Depository and Kindle), which tells the story of Christopher Cockerell’s discovery that heavy weights could be supported on a cushion of low pressure air, and the development of the hovercraft by those who were there, from the very early days through to the heyday of the giant 165-ton SRN.4, which crossed the English Channel starting in 1968 carrying 30 cars and 254 passengers at speeds in excess of 75 knots on a calm day. It was subsequently widened to carry 36 cars and 280 passengers with an A.U.W. of 200 tones and was later lengthened to an A.U.W of 325 tons and capable of carrying 55 cars and 424 passengers. The amazing point was that from 165 tons to 325 tons only 400 extra hp was required, although a bit of speed was sacrificed, proving conclusively that Christopher Cockerell’s theory was sound.
Sadly, for economic reasons, the service came to an end on 1st October 2000. In total 6 SR.4s were built and the two remaining ones are in the Hovercraft Museum at Lee-on-Solent, England. See http://www.onacushionofair.com
in fact the russians were the first ! 1935 : https://youtu.be/NfmKLud2ja8