Monday, August 11, 2008
Griffon Hovercraft in Iraq war
This is a commercial for Griffon hovercraft. Just shows some of the advantages of hovercraft.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
More History...
Civil commercial hovercraft
The British aircraft manufacturer Saunders-Roe which had aeronautical expertise developed the first practical man-carrying hovercraft, the SR-N1, which carried out several test programmes in 1959 to 1961 (the first public demonstration in 1959), including a cross-channel test run. The SR-N1 was powered by one (piston) engine, driven by expelled air. Demonstrated at the Farnborough Airshow in 1960, it was shown that this simple craft could carry a load of up to 12 marines with their equipment as well as the pilot and co-pilot with only a slight reduction in hover height proportional to the load carried. The SR.N1 did not have any skirt instead using the peripheral air principle that Sir Christopher has patented. It was later found that the craft's hover height was improved by the addition of a 'skirt' of flexible fabric or rubber around the hovering surface to contain the air. The skirt was an independent invention made by a Royal Navy officer, C.H. Latimer-Needham, who sold his idea to Westland (parent company of Saunders-Roe), and who worked with Sir Christopher to develop the idea further.
The first passenger-carrying hovercraft to enter service was the Vickers VA-3, which in the summer of 1962 carried passengers regularly along the North Wales Coast from Moreton, Merseyside to Rhyl. It was powered by two turboprop aero-engines and driven by propellers.
During the 1960s Saunders-Roe developed several larger designs which could carry passengers, including the SR-N2, which operated across the Solent in 1962 and later the SR-N6, which operated across the Solent from Southsea to Ryde on the Isle of Wight for many years. Operations by Hovertravel commenced on 24 July 1965 using the SR-N6 which carried just 38 passengers. Two modern 98 seat AP1-88 hovercraft now ply this route, and over 20 million passengers have used the service as of 2004.
In 1966 two Cross Channel passenger hovercraft services were inaugurated using hovercraft. Hoverlloyd ran services from Ramsgate Harbour to Calais and Townsend Ferries also started a service to Calais from Dover, which was soon superseded by that of Seaspeed.
As well as Saunders-Roe and Vickers (which combined in 1966 to form the British Hovercraft Corporation (BHC)), other commercial craft were developed during the 1960s in the UK by Cushioncraft (part of the Britten-Norman Group) and Hovermarine (the latter being 'Sidewall Hovercraft', where the sides of the hull projected down into the water to trap the cushion of air with 'normal' hovercraft skirts at the bow and stern).
The world's first car-carrying hovercraft made their debut in 1968, the BHC Mountbatten class (SR-N4) models, each powered by four Rolls-Royce Proteus gas turbine engines. These were both used by rival operators Hoverlloyd and Seaspeed to operate regular car and passenger carrying services across the English Channel. Hoverlloyd operated from Ramsgate, where a special hoverport had been built at Pegwell Bay, to Calais. Seaspeed operated from Dover, England to Calais and Boulogne in France. The first SR-N4 had a capacity of 254 passengers and 30 cars, and a top speed of 83 knots (154 km/h/96 mph). The Channel crossing took around 30 minutes and was run rather like an airline with flight numbers. The later SR-N4 MkIII had a capacity of 418 passengers and 60 cars. These were later joined by the French-built SEDAM N500 Naviplane with a capacity of 385 passengers and 45 cars, of which only one example entered service and was used intermittently for a few years on the cross-channel service until returned to SNCF in 1983. The service ceased in 2000 after 32 years, due to competition with traditional ferries, catamaran, the advancing age of the SR-N4 hovercraft and the opening of the Channel Tunnel.
In 1998, the US Postal Service began using the British built Hoverwork AP.1-88 to haul mail, freight, and passengers from Bethel, Alaska to and from eight small villages along the Kuskokwim River. Bethel is far removed from the Alaska road system, thus making the hovercraft an attractive alternative to the air based delivery methods used prior to introduction of the hovercraft service. Hovercraft service is suspended for several weeks each year while the river is beginning to freeze to minimize damage to the river ice surface. The hovercraft is perfectly able to operate during the freeze-up period; however, this could potentially break the ice and create hazards for villagers using their snowmobiles along the river during the early winter.
The commercial success of hovercraft suffered from rapid rises in fuel prices during the late 1960s and 1970s following conflict in the Middle East. Alternative over-water vehicles such as wave-piercing catamarans (marketed as the SeaCat in Britain) use less fuel and can perform most of the hovercraft's marine tasks. Although developed elsewhere in the world for both civil and military purposes, except for the Solent Ryde to Southsea crossing, hovercraft disappeared from the coastline of Britain until a range of Griffon Hovercraft were bought by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
In Finland small hovercraft are widely used in maritime rescue and during the rasputitsa ("mud season") as archipelago liaison vehicles. In England, hovercraft of the Burnham-on-Sea Area Rescue Boat (BARB) are used to rescue people from thick mud in Bridgwater Bay. Also Avon Fire and Rescue Service became the first fire service in the UK to operate a hovercraft. It is used to rescue people from thick mud in the Weston-super-Mare area and during times of inland flooding.
The Scandinavian airline SAS used to charter an AP. 1-88 Hovercraft for regular passengers between Copenhagen Airport, Denmark and the SAS Hovercraft Terminal in Malmö, Sweden.
An experimental service was operated in Scotland across the Firth of Forth (between Kirkcaldy and Portobello, Edinburgh), 16-28 July 2007. Marketed as Forthfast, the service used a craft chartered from Hovertravel Ltd and achieved 85% loadings. The possibility of establishing a permanent service is now under consideration. [3]
Following the abandonment of hovercraft use across the English Channel, and pending any reintroduction on the Scottish route, the United Kingdom's only public hovercraft service is that operated by Hovertravel between Southsea (Portsmouth) and Ryde, on the Isle of Wight.
From 1960s, several commercial lines were operated in Japan, without much success. In the country, the only commercial line still available is the one that links Ōita Airport and the central Ōita.
Military hovercraft
A US Navy LCAC hovercraft assigned to USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7).First applications of the hovercraft in military use was with the SR.N1 through SR.N6 craft built by Saunders-Roe in the Isle of Wight in the UK and used by the UK joint forces. To test the use of the hovercraft in military applications the UK set up the Interservice Hovercraft Trials Unit (IHTU) base at Lee-on-the-Solent in the UK (now the site of the Hovercraft Museum). This unit carried out trials on the SR.N1 from Mk1 through Mk5 as well as testing the SR.N2, 3, 5 and 6 craft. Currently the Royal Marines use the Griffon 2000TDX as an operational craft. This craft was recently deployed by the UK in Iraq.
In the US, during the 1960s, Bell licenced and sold the Saunders-Roe SRN-5 as the Bell SK-5. They were deployed on trial to the Vietnam War by the Navy as PACV patrol craft in the Mekong Delta where their mobility and speed was unique. 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 9255 PACV. The United States Army also experimented with the use of SR.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 1970 and another in August of that same year after which the unit was disbanded. The only remaining U.S. Army SR.N5 hovercraft is currently on display in the Army Transport Museum in Virginia. Experience led to the proposed Bell SK-10 which was the basis for the LCAC-class air-cushioned landing craft now deployed.
The Soviet Union was one of the first few nations to use a hovercraft, the Bora, as a guided missile corvette.
The Finnish Navy designed an experimental missile attack hovercraft class, Tuuli class hovercraft, in the late 1990s. The prototype of the class, Tuuli, was commissioned in 2000. 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.
The Hellenic Navy operates four Russian-designed Zubr class LCAC. This is the world’s largest military air-cushioned landing craft.
Credit to wikipedia
site can be viewed with links at;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovercraft
History of Hovercraft
In the mid-1950s, the British engineer Christopher Cockerell built a number of ground effect machine test models based on his idea of using air between the hull of a boat and the water to reduce drag.[citation needed] Although he filed a number of patents involving air-lubricated hulls in 1957, no practical applications were found. Over the years, various other people had tried various methods of using air to reduce the drag on ships.
The first fully functional, rigid-walled hovercraft was designed by Austrian Dagobert Müller von Thomamühl[1] and built by the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Navy (Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine) "Seearsenal" (Naval base) at Pola. The 'Versuchsgleitboot - System Thomamühl' was launched on 2 September 1915[2] and was 13 metres (43 ft) long, 4 metres (13 ft) wide, displaced about 6.5 tonnes (6.4 LT/7.2 ST), had a crew of five men, and had a top speed of over 32 knots (59 km/h/37 mph). By 1916 it was undergoing testing as a fast-torpedo boat and was equipped with two torpedoes, one Schwarzlose machine gun and several 6-kilogram (13 lb) "water-bombs", intended for anti-submarine use. It had two propellers, each of which was driven by two 6-cylinder 120-horsepower (89 kW) airplane engines, a fifth 4-cylinder 65-horsepower (48 kW) engine was used to blow warm air under the hull, creating the "air-cushion or hover" effect. After wide ranging full scale sea trials, the vessel was eventually scrapped in 1917 and the engines returned to the naval air-arm (Luftfahrttruppe); no further testing or research into hovercrafts was undertaken by the Imperial Austro-Hungarian navy during the period up to its eventual capitulation.
Finnish engineer Toivo J. Kaario, head inspector of Valtion Lentokonetehdas (VL) airplane engine workshop, began to design an air cushion craft in 1931. He constructed and tested his craft, dubbed pintaliitäjä (Surface Glider), and received its Finnish patents 18630 and 26122.[citation needed] Kaario is considered to have designed and built the first functional ground effect vehicle, but his invention did not receive sufficient funds for further development.
The first to give scientific description of the ground effect and to provide theoretical methods of calculation of air cushion vehicles was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in his 1927 paper "Air Resistance and the Express Train".[3][4] Since then Soviet engineer Vladimir Levkov began to develop air cushion vehicles. In the mid 1930s, Levkov assembled about 20 experimental air-cushion boats (fast attack craft and high-speed torpedo boats). The first prototype, designated L-1, had a very simple design which consisted of two small wooden catamarans that were powered by three engines. Two M-11 radial aero-engines were installed horizontally in the funnel-shaped wells on the platform which connected the catamaran hulls together. The third engine, also an air-cooled M-11, was placed in the aft part of the craft on a removable four-strut pylon. An air cushion was produced by the horizontally-placed engines. During successful tests, one of Levkov's air-cushion craft, called fast attack L-5 boat, achieved a speed of 70 knots (130 km/h/81 mph).
The first technically and commercially viable hovercraft was invented and patented by the English inventor Christopher Cockerell in 1955.[citation needed]
However, there had been numerous previous experimental attempts to design vehicles using the ground-effect principle, including prototypes built by Russian and German naval designers in World War I. In the US during World War II, Charles J. Fletcher designed his "Glidemobile" while he was a United States Navy Reservist. The design worked on the principle of trapping a constant airflow against a uniform surface (either the ground or water), providing anywhere from ten inches (254 mm) to two feet (250–600 mm) of lift to free it from the surface, and control of the craft would be achieved by the measured release of air. Shortly after being tested on Beezer's Pond in Fletcher's home town of Sparta Township, New Jersey, the design was immediately appropriated by the United States Department of War and classified, denying Fletcher the opportunity to patent his creation. As such Fletcher's work was largely unknown until a case was brought (British Hovercraft Ltd v. The United States of America) in which the British corporation maintained that its rights, coming from to Sir Christopher Cockerell's patent, had been infringed. British Hovercraft's claim, seeking US$104,000,000 in damages, was unsuccessful. In a case brought in 1985, Patent agents BTG successfully sued the US Department of Defence, being awarded $6 million in damages in 1990. [1]
However, Colonel Melville W. Beardsley (1913-1998), an American inventor and aeronautical engineer, received $80,000 from Cockerell for his rights to American patents. Beardsley worked on a number of unique ideas in the 1950s and '60s which he patented. His company built craft based on his designs at his Maryland base for the US Government and commercial applications. Beardsley later worked for the US Navy on developing the hovercraft further for military use. Dr. W. Bertelsen also worked on developing early ACVs in the USA. Dr. Bertelsen built an early prototype of a hovercraft vehicle in 1959 (called Aeromobile 35-B), and was photographed for Popular Science magazine riding the vehicle over land and water in April on 1959. The article on his invention was the front page story for the July, 1959 edition of Popular Science.
In 1952 the British inventor Christopher Cockerell worked with air lubrication with test craft on the Norfolk Broads. From this he moved on to the idea of a deeper air cushion. Cockerell used simple experiments involving a vacuum cleaner motor and two cylindrical cans to create his unique peripheral jet system, the key to his hovercraft invention, patented as the "hovercraft principle". He proved the workable principle of a vehicle suspended on a cushion of air blown out under pressure, making the vehicle easily mobile over most surfaces. The supporting air cushion would enable it to operate over soft mud, water, and marshes and swamps as well as on firm ground. He designed a working model vehicle based on his patent. Showing his model to the authorities led to it being put on the secret list as being of possible military use and therefore restricted. However, to keep Britain in the lead in developments, in 1958 the National Research and Development Corporation took on his design (paying £1,000 for the rights) and paid for an experimental vehicle, the SR-N1 to be built by Saunders-Roe to Cockerell's design. It was launched on 11 June 1959.[5] Shortly afterwards it made a crossing from France to the United Kingdom on the 50th anniversary of Bleriot's cross Channel flight. However, stability problems remained, and it was the invention of the segmented skirt by his close colleague and collaborator, engineer Denys Bliss in 1962 [6] [7] which solved these and made the hovercraft a commercial reality. According to patent agents BTG the Bliss patent was "the key factor for success". A further patent 1239745 "Anti-ditch shift of cushion C.P" was taken out jointly by Cockerell and Bliss in July 1967: [2]
Cockerell was knighted for his services to engineering in 1969. Sir Christopher coined the word hovercraft to describe his invention.[8]
Credit to Wikipedia
see;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovercraft
The first fully functional, rigid-walled hovercraft was designed by Austrian Dagobert Müller von Thomamühl[1] and built by the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Navy (Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine) "Seearsenal" (Naval base) at Pola. The 'Versuchsgleitboot - System Thomamühl' was launched on 2 September 1915[2] and was 13 metres (43 ft) long, 4 metres (13 ft) wide, displaced about 6.5 tonnes (6.4 LT/7.2 ST), had a crew of five men, and had a top speed of over 32 knots (59 km/h/37 mph). By 1916 it was undergoing testing as a fast-torpedo boat and was equipped with two torpedoes, one Schwarzlose machine gun and several 6-kilogram (13 lb) "water-bombs", intended for anti-submarine use. It had two propellers, each of which was driven by two 6-cylinder 120-horsepower (89 kW) airplane engines, a fifth 4-cylinder 65-horsepower (48 kW) engine was used to blow warm air under the hull, creating the "air-cushion or hover" effect. After wide ranging full scale sea trials, the vessel was eventually scrapped in 1917 and the engines returned to the naval air-arm (Luftfahrttruppe); no further testing or research into hovercrafts was undertaken by the Imperial Austro-Hungarian navy during the period up to its eventual capitulation.
Finnish engineer Toivo J. Kaario, head inspector of Valtion Lentokonetehdas (VL) airplane engine workshop, began to design an air cushion craft in 1931. He constructed and tested his craft, dubbed pintaliitäjä (Surface Glider), and received its Finnish patents 18630 and 26122.[citation needed] Kaario is considered to have designed and built the first functional ground effect vehicle, but his invention did not receive sufficient funds for further development.
The first to give scientific description of the ground effect and to provide theoretical methods of calculation of air cushion vehicles was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in his 1927 paper "Air Resistance and the Express Train".[3][4] Since then Soviet engineer Vladimir Levkov began to develop air cushion vehicles. In the mid 1930s, Levkov assembled about 20 experimental air-cushion boats (fast attack craft and high-speed torpedo boats). The first prototype, designated L-1, had a very simple design which consisted of two small wooden catamarans that were powered by three engines. Two M-11 radial aero-engines were installed horizontally in the funnel-shaped wells on the platform which connected the catamaran hulls together. The third engine, also an air-cooled M-11, was placed in the aft part of the craft on a removable four-strut pylon. An air cushion was produced by the horizontally-placed engines. During successful tests, one of Levkov's air-cushion craft, called fast attack L-5 boat, achieved a speed of 70 knots (130 km/h/81 mph).
The first technically and commercially viable hovercraft was invented and patented by the English inventor Christopher Cockerell in 1955.[citation needed]
However, there had been numerous previous experimental attempts to design vehicles using the ground-effect principle, including prototypes built by Russian and German naval designers in World War I. In the US during World War II, Charles J. Fletcher designed his "Glidemobile" while he was a United States Navy Reservist. The design worked on the principle of trapping a constant airflow against a uniform surface (either the ground or water), providing anywhere from ten inches (254 mm) to two feet (250–600 mm) of lift to free it from the surface, and control of the craft would be achieved by the measured release of air. Shortly after being tested on Beezer's Pond in Fletcher's home town of Sparta Township, New Jersey, the design was immediately appropriated by the United States Department of War and classified, denying Fletcher the opportunity to patent his creation. As such Fletcher's work was largely unknown until a case was brought (British Hovercraft Ltd v. The United States of America) in which the British corporation maintained that its rights, coming from to Sir Christopher Cockerell's patent, had been infringed. British Hovercraft's claim, seeking US$104,000,000 in damages, was unsuccessful. In a case brought in 1985, Patent agents BTG successfully sued the US Department of Defence, being awarded $6 million in damages in 1990. [1]
However, Colonel Melville W. Beardsley (1913-1998), an American inventor and aeronautical engineer, received $80,000 from Cockerell for his rights to American patents. Beardsley worked on a number of unique ideas in the 1950s and '60s which he patented. His company built craft based on his designs at his Maryland base for the US Government and commercial applications. Beardsley later worked for the US Navy on developing the hovercraft further for military use. Dr. W. Bertelsen also worked on developing early ACVs in the USA. Dr. Bertelsen built an early prototype of a hovercraft vehicle in 1959 (called Aeromobile 35-B), and was photographed for Popular Science magazine riding the vehicle over land and water in April on 1959. The article on his invention was the front page story for the July, 1959 edition of Popular Science.
In 1952 the British inventor Christopher Cockerell worked with air lubrication with test craft on the Norfolk Broads. From this he moved on to the idea of a deeper air cushion. Cockerell used simple experiments involving a vacuum cleaner motor and two cylindrical cans to create his unique peripheral jet system, the key to his hovercraft invention, patented as the "hovercraft principle". He proved the workable principle of a vehicle suspended on a cushion of air blown out under pressure, making the vehicle easily mobile over most surfaces. The supporting air cushion would enable it to operate over soft mud, water, and marshes and swamps as well as on firm ground. He designed a working model vehicle based on his patent. Showing his model to the authorities led to it being put on the secret list as being of possible military use and therefore restricted. However, to keep Britain in the lead in developments, in 1958 the National Research and Development Corporation took on his design (paying £1,000 for the rights) and paid for an experimental vehicle, the SR-N1 to be built by Saunders-Roe to Cockerell's design. It was launched on 11 June 1959.[5] Shortly afterwards it made a crossing from France to the United Kingdom on the 50th anniversary of Bleriot's cross Channel flight. However, stability problems remained, and it was the invention of the segmented skirt by his close colleague and collaborator, engineer Denys Bliss in 1962 [6] [7] which solved these and made the hovercraft a commercial reality. According to patent agents BTG the Bliss patent was "the key factor for success". A further patent 1239745 "Anti-ditch shift of cushion C.P" was taken out jointly by Cockerell and Bliss in July 1967: [2]
Cockerell was knighted for his services to engineering in 1969. Sir Christopher coined the word hovercraft to describe his invention.[8]
Credit to Wikipedia
see;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovercraft
Friday, August 8, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
A Blog is a start...
I have created this blog to promote my concept of manufacturing hovercraft in Thailand. I have started to build a prototype hovercraft based on the sevtec style with a few modifications of my own thrown in.
My Idea is to manufacture commercial hovercraft for use in Thailand. I am not the first person in thailand to find this concept of interest and I hope that other interested parties will join in and contribute to this site.
I am told that in the mid-1990's there was a hovercraft service running from Phuket to Krabi and back, using 17-21 passagener craft. For some reason this was halted 1 or 2 years after in comenced. I would be very interested to learn more about this project if anyone has any Info.
I am also aware of a project up in Samui with is hoping to oprate Hovpod craft as a tourist attraction. Phuket Hovercraft is another development on the scene and they have 2 or 3 universal hovercraft which they run as a tourist attraction.
Another notable hovercraft manufacturer in the region is scat hovercraft based in singapore. They advertise under their own name but some of their craft look remarkably like other designs, so much so that I believe they are manufactured under license.
My Idea is to manufacture commercial hovercraft for use in Thailand. I am not the first person in thailand to find this concept of interest and I hope that other interested parties will join in and contribute to this site.
I am told that in the mid-1990's there was a hovercraft service running from Phuket to Krabi and back, using 17-21 passagener craft. For some reason this was halted 1 or 2 years after in comenced. I would be very interested to learn more about this project if anyone has any Info.
I am also aware of a project up in Samui with is hoping to oprate Hovpod craft as a tourist attraction. Phuket Hovercraft is another development on the scene and they have 2 or 3 universal hovercraft which they run as a tourist attraction.
Another notable hovercraft manufacturer in the region is scat hovercraft based in singapore. They advertise under their own name but some of their craft look remarkably like other designs, so much so that I believe they are manufactured under license.
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