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What Happened To Passenger Hovercraft? (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Although much has been written about hoverboards lately, hovercraft have largely faded from public imagination, BBC News reports. The Bond-esque 1960s sensation proved too noisy to roam inland rivers regularly, while too small to compete at sea with a new generation of conventional mega-ferries and high-speed car-carrying catamarans. Military aside, only a 10-minute English route and a Sino-Russian river border crossing keep hopes air-cushioned nowadays, while civilian operators wait for electric propulsion to become practical, aiming to reduce airplane-like noise levels and excessive fuel costs with new technology.
I'm a Florida tourist, you insensitive clod!
I blame SeaSpray.
Around the early 1990s, I test drove a hovercraft that was selling for about $10k. With the salesperson, I got it easily up to 70mph (what the caliberated radar gun clocked it on, when running down a closed road), and because it used foam in fiberglass for the main body work, when the engine was off... it floated, and was usable for fishing.
It was a fun, though loud ride. With modern batteries and electric motors, I'd expect the only noise to be the fan, so a modern version would be a lot quieter.
Seems like anything transportation related that isn't a Prius add-on or bicycle accessory gets tossed out to pasture these days. My neighbor has a mid-1960s convertible with doors that have tight seals... and it can drive right into the lake without a second thought. It is almost 45 years later... flying cars won't happen... but a floating car would be nice.
I have fond memories as a teenager riding the hovercraft from Southampton to the Isle of Wight and back for summer holiday fun. Fun, fun, fun. If one was stood aft upon take off, the spray generated by the fans was enormous and you received a good soaking, which was pleasant on a warm summer day. It would douse your fags, though...
Never a good start...
and relatively cheaper per transported cargo.
What happened to passenger hovercraft? That's obvious; the flexibility they provide (amphibious, require little infrastructure) obviously doesn't offset their inherent disadvantages (lack of carrying capacity, poor fuel efficiency, etc) except for military applications. What I want to know is what happened to the hydrofoil? I got to ride on one from H.K. to Macao at a very young age; I remember being mildly disturbed at the speeds we were traveling at... I've never heard a peep about them, however.
Great video describing the downturn of the hovercraft and concorde etc - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYH1lPm41-0
I rode on a hovercraft once - over the English channel from France to England. It was an interesting experience. Not worth repeating. It was extremely noisy. I would rather take a slower route.
My stepdad used to work for a company called Hoverstar USA down in Florida.
The hovercrafts then used fiberglass bodies and 440cc yamaha smowmobile engines. Fun things to tool around in.
We used to take them out into the Jensen Beach causeway (I was around 11 at the time, so about 30 years ago) and go wingin' around on 'em. They were nice because one person could take it out, go scubaing, and climb back in the thing from the water without tipping over with full gear on.
They'd go 50MPH on water, sand, snow, whichever. Fun toys.
However, they weren't street legalable, at least then, and were in the $8-12,000 range to start.
Sure were fun toys though. DO a GIS for the company name and you can see them. I used to help work on those!
They sink when the power fails.
...while civilian operators wait for electric propulsion to become practical
I expect they'll have a long, long wait.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
have you seen the price of eel? I'm all in favor of a hovercraft full of 'em.
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Have a look at the America's Cup AC72 foiling catamarans. They can sail downwind up to 2.8 times faster than the wind is blowing.
Do not touch the trim.
https://youtu.be/uByeEObHaBA
You are welcome on my lawn.
In the early 1990s one could travel between Hong Kong and Kowloon by hovercraft. It was an interesting change of pace, but I could see how it couldn't compete against the Star Ferry.
As long as this world has Lamborghinis and Jackie Chan, it is not a safe world for hovercraft.
God spoke to me
The U.S. Marines are making great use of them.
There are a number of military advantages to hovercraft that don't apply to civilian applications:
1. They can move up onto the beach
2. They can move over coral reefs and submerged obstacles
3. They can move over minefields (the pressure is too dispersed to detonate them)
But there are also drawbacks:
1. They are expensive
2. They require a lot of maintenance
3. They have a lot of downtime
4. They are difficult to operate
5. They are dangerous: they can drift sideways in a turn, and they don't stop quickly.
Semper Fi
There is a company called Air Rider that makes personal hovercraft in Parry Sound. There are lots of small islands in the area that are hard to get to in the winter time. A lot more people are living there full time and use hover craft to travel across the ice in the winter. The other option is to run your skidoo really fast over the ice and hope you don't sink.
I thought those last five points were also military advantages. :-) :-) :-)
full of eels?
Just like SST... and when there is no option people choose the only option.
A Hovercraft is not as economical as a boat and the speed of catamaran ferries is now about 65 km/h, yes a Hovercraft can go MUCH faster but they rarely do so the idea is dead wherever a boat can be used.
What kind of world has it become that "Bond-esque" gets a capital letter, but English and Sino-Russian don't?
Hovercraft have to LIFT their cargo. It's a stupendous waste of energy compared to other methods (floating their cargo, etc.). Only aircraft, hovercraft and things like cranes actually are required to lift their cargo and all take huge amounts of engineering and energy to do so.
For a quick sojourn across some water, it's a pointless waste of time and effort to lift the load up and then move it around, by blowing air at the floor - no matter how you skirt it. Helicopters are the only equivalent but they have low weight limits in comparison to everything else for the same reasons - they have to push air down with more energy than their load takes to lift directly.
As such, I'm not surprised that boats (where you just have to design to have enough bouyancy to counter-balance the load, and then enough energy to slide forward a little) are surpassing hovercraft.
Hovercraft's only advantage is to be able to seamlessly switch between sea and (relatively flat and open) land. Going beach-to-beach, that's an advantage, but that's quite a rare circumstance - you can't drop off tourist cars to a beach, for example, even between England and France (hell, the English side is mostly sheer cliff-face). And, let's face it, a duck-bus (amphibious vehicle) can do that too and they're dead in the water (sorry) as well.
Hovercraft are for niche transport, not anything common, heavy, en-masse, or sustained. I'm not surprised they're dying out.
Electric motors aren't going to save them either. That requires huge weights of batteries which are going to weigh more than their current fuel + engine to provide equivalent power. And, as such, play against their biggest weakness of having to lift their load up before they can move about.
The ex-Top Gear hosts showed their excitement for the craft by attempting to Revive it with better technology (portable Van for commuters) - and in a later episode a race though a city.
Although - they may have crushed any hopes that the technology would catch on by mocking the noise & mess they create in front of a "high-class" restaurant.
While driving in the race Clarkson indirectly showed how dangerous the craft can be - tight turns and short stops were impossible. Of course his buffoonery amplified the problems.
THEY ARE LOUD AS HELL
You _have_ been watching the America's cup haven't you? Sailboats at 50MPH... And there are lots of services listed on Wikipedia.