050
Hovercraft Museum, Lee-on-the-Solent, England
50° 48′ 28.08″ N, 1° 12′ 32.01″ W
The World’s Biggest Collection of Air-Cushion Vehicles
The hovercraft seems like the kind of invention that would have had the inventor exclaiming, “It’s so crazy, it just might work” (at least in the movie adaptation). And anyone who has had the pleasure of flying in a hovercraft across the English Channel from Britain to France will recall the rapid, bumpy ride.
Unfortunately, cross-Channel hovercraft travel ended in 2000 due to competition from the Channel Tunnel. But the hovercraft live on at the Hovercraft Museum (Figure 50-1).
Figure 50-1. The Hovercraft Museum; courtesy of The Hovercraft Museum Trust
The museum is housed in a disused Royal Navy Air Station and has the best collection of hovercraft in the world. There’s everything from a tiny, one-man Winfield to massive passenger and military machines.
The museum also has many of the parts of the large SR N4 Mk II hovercraft that used to cross the Channel, carrying up to 278 passengers and 36 cars. On display at the site are two complete SR N4 Mk IIs that are not currently owned by the museum; access to these craft is restricted, but just standing next to one is inspiring. The SR N4 Mk II was powered by four Rolls Royce gas turbine engines, and could make the trip from Dover to Calais in as little as 22 minutes.
The museum also has preserved a Royal Navy BH7, which was capable of traveling at 65 knots. It’s the only large British military hovercraft still in existence.
The last surviving model used for development of the SR N1, the first practical hovercraft, is on display and in working order.
In addition, there’s an extensive collection of model hovercraft that were used for research purposes, and a reproduction of hovercraft inventor Sir Christopher Cockerell’s original experiment. It was this experiment, using a pair of coffee cans and the motor from a vacuum cleaner, that convinced him that this crazy idea just might work.
The museum also houses a collection of models by John Thornycroft. Thornycroft was a boat designer who worked on air lubrication of ships using a concave hull, which would contain a bubble of air under the ship. These air-lubricated designs are predecessors of the hovercraft, and led Thornycroft to work on hydrofoils.
Practical Information
The Hovercraft Museum is only open to the public by appointment (or on one of its rare open days). Visitors are welcome, but you’ll need to call at least a week in advance and organize a tour. Tours last a couple of hours and take in 50 to 60 hovercraft. Full details are available from http://www.hovercraft-museum.org/.
If the museum awakens in you the desire to ride in a hovercraft, there’s a commercial service crossing from nearby Southsea to the Isle of Wight. The trip takes 10 minutes.
