World of Hovercrafts
October 24th 2006 02:58
A hovercraft, or air-cushion vehicle (ACV), is a vehicle or craft that can be supported by a cushion of air ejected downwards against a surface close below it, and can in principle travel over any relatively smooth surface, such as gently sloping land, water, or marshland, while having no substantial contact with it.
The first recorded design for a vehicle which could be termed a Hovercraft was in 1716 by Swedish designer, Emanuel Swedenborg.
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. Hovercraft have also been used by the military since the 1960s.
Today Hovercraft are used for almost every purpose you could think of including freight and passenger transport, sport and recreation, law enforcement, rescue and life saving. The photos below show various hovercrafts in action, more photos here.
*The photo of the BHC SRN4 is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License. It came from the Wikipedia page for Hovercraft.
**The remaining photos were used with permission from Ezprezzo.
***This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation Licence. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Hovercraft.
The first recorded design for a vehicle which could be termed a Hovercraft was in 1716 by Swedish designer, Emanuel Swedenborg.
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. Hovercraft have also been used by the military since the 1960s.
Today Hovercraft are used for almost every purpose you could think of including freight and passenger transport, sport and recreation, law enforcement, rescue and life saving. The photos below show various hovercrafts in action, more photos here.
World's Largest Civil Hovercraft - The BHC SRN4 Mk III at 56.4 m (185 ft) length and 310 tonnes (305 tons) weight, can accommodate 418 passengers and 60 cars.
*The photo of the BHC SRN4 is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License. It came from the Wikipedia page for Hovercraft.
**The remaining photos were used with permission from Ezprezzo.
***This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation Licence. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Hovercraft.
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