A group in Niagara, Canada is hoping to use hovercraft to ferry tourists and workers from Toronto and Niagara each day. The hovercraft would be a cost-effective option for commuters who must drive or fly to Niagara. The hovercraft would also be helpful during inclement weather, as they can travel across ice and snow more safely than cars or trucks. Hovercraft are also often used to respond to oil spills.
Hovercraft have the ability to carry heavy oil spill response equipment across the ocean, without the use of boat propellers that can churn up surface oil and make matters worse.
They are light, fast, road transportable and very adaptable with the unique feature of minimising damage to environments. First applications of the hovercraft in military use was with the SR.
N1 through SR. This unit carried out trials on the SR. N1 from Mk1 through Mk5 as well as testing the SR. N2 , SR. N3 , SR.
N5 and SR. N6 craft. The was deployed by the UK in Iraq. N5 as the Bell SK This was used in both the UK SR. N5 curved deck configuration and later with modified flat deck, gun turret and grenade launcher designated the PACV. N5 hovercraft in Vietnam. Three hovercraft with the flat deck configuration were deployed to Dong Tam in the Mekong delta region and later to Ben Luc.
They saw action primarily in the Plain of Reeds. One was destroyed in early and another in August of that same year after which the unit was disbanded. The only remaining U.
Army SR. N5 hovercraft is currently on display in the Army Transport Museum in Virginia. The Soviet Union was the world's largest developer of military hovercraft.
The Soviet Union was also one of the first nations to use a hovercraft, the Bora , as a guided missile corvette , though this craft possessed rigid, non-inflatable sides. With the fall of the Soviet Union most Soviet military hovercraft fell into disuse and disrepair. Only recently has the modern Russian Navy begun building new classes of military hovercraft. The Iranian Navy operates multiple British made [20] [21] and some Iranian produced hovercrafts.
Iran has equipped the Tondar with mid-range missiles, machine guns and retrievable reconnaissance drones. Currently they are used for water patrols and combat against drug smugglers. The Finnish Navy designed an experimental missile attack hovercraft class, Tuuli class hovercraft , in the late s. The prototype of the class, Tuuli , was commissioned in It proved an extremely successful design for a littoral fast attack craft, but due to fiscal reasons and doctrinal change in the Navy, the hovercraft was soon withdrawn.
This troop and equipment carrying hovercraft is roughly the Chinese equivalent of the U. Navy LCAC. Small commercially manufactured, kit or plan-built hovercraft are increasingly being used for recreational purposes such as inland racing and cruising on inland lakes and rivers, marshy areas, estuaries and inshore coastal waters. The Hovercraft Cruising Club [26] supports the use of hovercraft for cruising in coastal and inland waterways, lakes and lochs.
The Hovercraft Club of Great Britain, founded in , regularly organizes inland and coastal hovercraft race events at various venues across the United Kingdom. A real benefit of air cushion vehicles in moving heavy loads over difficult terrain, such as swamps, was overlooked by the excitement of the British Government funding to develop high-speed hovercraft. It was not until the early s that the technology was used for moving a modular marine barge with a dragline on board for use over soft reclaimed land.
Hoverbarges are still in operation today. In , Hovertrans formed by the original managers of Mackace launched a ton payload drilling barge in the swamps of Suriname. The Hoverbarge technology is somewhat different from high-speed hovercraft, which has traditionally been constructed using aircraft technology. The initial concept of the air cushion barge has always been to provide a low-tech amphibious solution for accessing construction sites using typical equipment found in this area, such as diesel engines, ventilating fans, winches and marine equipment.
The load to move a ton payload ACV barge at 5 kn 9. The skirt and air distribution design on the high-speed craft again is more complex as they have to cope with the air cushion being washed out by a wave and wave impact. The slow speed and large mono chamber of the hover barge actually helps reduce the effect of wave action giving a very smooth ride. The low pull force enabled a helicopter to pull a hoverbarge across snow, ice and water in Several attempts have been made to adopt air cushion technology for use in fixed track systems, in order to utilize the lower frictional forces for delivering high speeds.
The project was abandoned in due to lack of funding, the death of its lead engineer and the adoption of TGV by the French government as its high-speed ground transport solution. A test track for a tracked hovercraft system was built at Earith near Cambridge, England. Careful examination of the site will still reveal traces of the concrete piers used to support the structure.
The actual vehicle, RTV31, is preserved at Railworld in Peterborough [34] and can be seen from trains, just south west of Peterborough railway station. The project was managed by Tracked Hovercraft Ltd. Despite promising early results, the Cambridge project was abandoned in due to financial constraints, but parts of the project were picked up by the engineering firm Alfred McAlpine , only to be finally abandoned in the mids.
The Tracked Hovercraft project and Professor Laithwaite's Maglev train system were contemporaneous, and there was intense competition between the two prospective British systems for funding and credibility. At the other end of the speed spectrum, the Dorfbahn Serfaus has been in continuous operation since This is an unusual underground air cushion funicular rapid transit system, situated in the Austrian ski resort of Serfaus. In the late s and early s the U.
They were also known as Aerotrains since one of the builders had a licence from Bertin's Aerotrain company. Three separate projects were funded. Research and development was carried out by Rohr, Inc. The UMTA built an extensive test site in Pueblo, Colorado, with different types of tracks for the different technologies used by the prototype contractors. They managed to build prototypes and do a few test runs before the funding was cut. The Hoover Constellation was a spherical canister-type vacuum cleaner notable for its lack of wheels.
Floating on a cushion of air, it was a domestic hovercraft. They were not especially good as vacuum cleaners as the air escaping from under the cushion blew uncollected dust in all directions, nor as hovercraft as their lack of a skirt meant that they only hovered effectively over a smooth surface.
Despite this, original Constellations are sought-after collectibles today. The Flymo is an air-cushion lawn mower which uses a fan on the cutter blade to provide lift.
This allows it to be moved in any direction, and provides double-duty as a mulcher. This device is easy and quick to move, and has no pressure points, making damage to the pitch less likely. The system is quite popular at major pitches in the UK. Lee-on-the-Solent , Hampshire, England, is the home to the Hovercraft Museum which houses the world's largest collection of hovercraft designs, including some of the earliest and largest.
Much of the collection is housed within two retired SR. N4 hovercraft, and many hovercraft in the collection are operational. Hovercraft are still in use between Ryde on the Isle of Wight and Southsea on the mainland. The service, operated by Hovertravel , runs many times an hour and is the fastest way of getting on or off the island.
Large passenger hovercraft are still manufactured on the Isle of Wight. Military Wiki Explore. Popular pages. Raaen, Jr. Project maintenance. Register Don't have an account? Edit source History Talk 0. A Formula 1 racing hovercraft.
For the band, see Hovercraft band. Play media. See also: Air-cushioned landing craft. Retrieved Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Retrieved 6 May Whatever Happened to the Hovercraft? Today's Top Stories. Navy uses hovercraft to speed Marines and their equipment to shore quickly. The new generation hovercraft are easier to build and use more powerful engines. This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
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