HOVERCRAFT HAS HUGE POTENTIAL

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29916, 1 September 1962, Page 8

HOVERCRAFT HAS HUGE POTENTIAL

(Specially written for “The Press’' by BASIL CLARKE] f LONDON, August 15. ■ ’THIS is the story of an idea that turned at ' once into a practical reality—the “Hovercraft.” So often, a new invention is announced and then so long a time elapses before it is put to practical use that it is almost forgotten outside the technical world. The case of the Hovercraft is the exact reverse of this.

? It seems only yesterday •that Christopher Cockerell ’announced his new idea for •tarrying a vehicle on a cushion of air a few feet above 'the ground; and, with trielion eliminated, travelling at "unheard-of speeds over "water, or over land where roads would have cost millions of pounds to build. Now we have an actual public service operating in ■Britain, using a 24-seat Hovercraft the Vickers VA3, the first such service in the world.

A consortium —a group of enterprises—has made this possible. British Petroleum supplies the fuel. Vickers built the Hovercraft. British United Airways operates the service.

They chose the route between Rhyl, in North Wales and Wallasey, near Liverpool, as being an ideal place in which to demonstrate the immense possibilities of the new vehicle. The direct route over -the water is about 15 miles (24 kilometres), whereas the overland route round the estuary of the River Dee is nearer 50 miles <BO kilometres). The road is not in the best tradition of motorways and two hours is a reasonable time for the Journey. By “Hovercraft” it takes 25 minutes from embarkation to disembarkation.

The service began on July 20 from Rhyl, and it is interesting to note that the “driver" was a distinguished test pilot of the Vickers organisation. The interest lies in the argument which has taken place ever since "Hovercraft” were first invented. Are they vessels, land vehicles, or aircraft? Should their handlers hold a seagoing masters’ certificate, or a driving licence, or should they be qualified air pilots? The argument is not settled yet, but for the moment, in Britain, the Ministry of Aviation controls the operation of “Hovercraft," so a pilot was employed to “drive” the device. It is worth adding that his second-in-command holds a maritime mate's ticket. So there are the seeds of further discussion. We boarded the “Hovercraft" from the sandy beach at Rhyl and, accompanied by rather a lot of noise from four Bristol-Siddeley gas turbines—two that provided the high-pressure cushion of air beneath the “Hovercraft" and two which drove propellers similar to those used to move aircraft—we rose a foot or so above the beach and then —moved seawards. In spite of the strong downdraught, very little sand was blown up. but when we

reached the water’s edge a considerable amount of spray □lew’ up round us and rather obscured our view. Then power w’as increased for the propellers and we .rapidly achieved a speed of 60 knots, leaving all the spray behind us.

; The ride was a smooth one, •without any of the pitching and rolling you often get when travelling on the surface of the sea. Only unusually high waves obstructed our passage and the effect was quite unlike anything normally associated with sea travel. It was reminiscent of the sports car of 30 years ago with hard suspension and tightly-adjusted shock absorbers. Hitting a wave meant a jolt, with no period of pitching or rolling to follow. The jolt was immediately followed by the original smooth movement.

Future Development

Away to the south of us lay the Dee estuary, ahead the tip of the Wirral Peninsula and our destination, Wallasey. Almost before we realised it we were slowing down before running up the steep slope of the slipway and disembarking in the County of Cheshire. No-one was seasick—there was no reason to be—but it would have been more pleasant if the “Hovercraft" had been quieter. The designers assured us, however, that this problem had already been solved and subsequent versions would eliminate even this one criticism.

Proudly carrying the certificates issued to the passengers on this inaugural journey in the world’s latest form of transport we went our various ways, but not before we had asked the operators abcut future plans. These are widespread, envisaging the extension of the use of the smaller type “Hovercraft.” such as the V.A.3, across, stretches of water where there is a large passenger potential and, at the other end of the scale, the carriage of large loads of freight— Air passengers—in “Hovercraft” of very much larger size. A 100-ton car ferry is now being built and it should not be so very long before an even bigger vehicle is introduced for the English Channel crossing. The possibilities of this new type of transport are as yet only seen in rather a vague way. Just as Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler could never have foreseen what their motor-car would do for mankind, so it is difficult for us even with our vastly wider horizons of imagination, to visualise what the “Hovercraft” will do for the world One thing is certain. This British invention will do more to open up remote, undeveloped areas, hemmed in by desert sands or wastes of ice and snow, than any other system of transport. The waterways of the Congo and South America, the arid areas of Australia, the steppes of Siberia, and the ice-caps of the Poles all offer natural highways for the “Hovercraft ” and plans are well advanced to exploit these great possibilities.

It is a far cry from the motor sledges Captain Robert Falcon Scott took on his 191112 expedition to the South Pole to the “Hovercraft" of today, but it is as nearly certain as anything can be that only a few years will pass before they arrive under their own power at the South Pole

The world has a new system of transport and the holiday-makers of Lancashire and North Wales will go down in history as the first users of the system. It is only necessary to watch the queues waiting to book their passages to realise that the early misgivings about the railway and the aeroplane have not extended to the “Hovercraft.”