Hovercraft being broken up

[Scuffers]

so I take it you see no educational or inspirational benefits to our next generation of engineers to have some of our past achievements still in existence so they can look at them?

i guess your aware of Tim peak? Currently on the International Space Station and how he's been used to inspire are school children? The Next Generation into getting interested in space technology guess how much that little exercise cost and which public purse it came out of or used consider that's a complete waste of money as well?

[rs1952]

littlebasher said:

hidetheelephants said:

How far do you want to go? They can get out the way they came in; through the gates, across the road, down the beach and onto the oggin.

See that one on the left?.....I massively puked in that one.

See the other one on the right?.....I puked in that one as well.

Well I never puked in any of them, and I used Hoverspeed services for a good 15 years until they withdrew the hovercrafts and replaced them with Sea Cats. One trip on one of those (55 minutes rather than 35, and loading and offloading cars was a pain by comparison) and Hoverspeed lost my custom to the ferries and the Channel Tunnel. I thought them by far the best and quickest way to cross the channel and I still do - the tunnel can match the point to point times but loading and unloading is much more of an arse ache than it was with the hovercraft.

But on the matter of preservation, there is another thread running on this sub-forum at the moment entitled "Driving a large steam locomotive." This it is still possible to do in the UK, but primarily so because many groups of enthusiasts around the country got together and restored and preserved some. Had it been left to the government we probably would have had a static display at York Railway Museum and that would be about it, and even then permanently short of cash and facing closure whenever the government wanted to use the money somewhere else. Put not your faith in governments – they’re all the bleedin’ same the world over...

In short, preservation of even one of these things requires a group of enthusiasts to band together, raise the funds and get on with it. But are there enough sufficiently committed enthusiasts out there? Because if not, they ain't gonna be around for much longer...

[Chrisgr31]

A Hovercraft would surely be much easier to preserve than Concorde, cheaper and if on the shore easier o give rides in, or is it subject to CAA rules?

[hidetheelephants]

rs1952 said:

In short, preservation of even one of these things requires a group of enthusiasts to band together, raise the funds and get on with it. But are there enough sufficiently committed enthusiasts out there? Because if not, they ain't gonna be around for much longer...

The chaps running the Hovercraft Museum seem to do it on shoestring, I suspect because more generous sources of funding from the council/government/lottery are closed to them without a long lease or ownership of the museum premises; HMS Daedalus was a reasonably secure home while the MoD was the landlord, but it appears to have passed to some kind of local government development/enterprise quango and they aren't interested in anything other than houses and lots of them.

[Tom_C76]

Chrisgr31 said:

A Hovercraft would surely be much easier to preserve than Concorde, cheaper and if on the shore easier o give rides in, or is it subject to CAA rules?

Easier than Concorde for sure, but you are aware how big those things are? And how noisy, and how much crap they kick up?

Bigger isn't always better, and I believe there are still passenger hovercraft running to the Isle of White?

[V8 Fettler]

rs1952 said:

Well I never puked in any of them, and I used Hoverspeed services for a good 15 years until they withdrew the hovercrafts and replaced them with Sea Cats. One trip on one of those (55 minutes rather than 35, and loading and offloading cars was a pain by comparison) and Hoverspeed lost my custom to the ferries and the Channel Tunnel. I thought them by far the best and quickest way to cross the channel and I still do - the tunnel can match the point to point times but loading and unloading is much more of an arse ache than it was with the hovercraft.
>
>

A crossing in just over 20 minutes was possible.

[Yertis]

rs1952 said:

But on the matter of preservation, there is another thread running on this sub-forum at the moment entitled "Driving a large steam locomotive." This it is still possible to do in the UK, but primarily so because many groups of enthusiasts around the country got together and restored and preserved some. Had it been left to the government we probably would have had a static display at York Railway Museum and that would be about it, and even then permanently short of cash and facing closure whenever the government wanted to use the money somewhere else. Put not your faith in governments – they’re all the bleedin’ same the world over...

But steam locomotives and railways are part of the very fabric of the nation – hovercraft are just a slightly interesting technological cul de sac. Steam locomotives are also relatively easy and cheap to maintain. With something like an SRN4 you have most of the complexity of a large turboprop airliner and all the attendant costs and skills required.

Sorry, but I can't see this scheme ever getting off the ground.

[///ajd]

Whilst getting these running is a bridge too far, saving one SRN4 seems entirely logical and in the national interest, even if it just gets stored at wWroughton etc.

It is sad what we do seem prepared to spend money on, but preserving this kind of unique engineering is just overlooked it seems.

Sure it was a dead-end technology for the car-ferry application, but wonderfully inspiring to see for real.

This is what inspires engineers to become engineers, not things in books or even Tim Peake, good as his space trip is. I was originally a VulcanTTS skeptic (waste of money), but in hindsight that was a wonderful enterprise, while it lasted.

Still remember the day as a young lad I saw TSR2 at Duxford > result > I want to make & do stuff like that. And I did/do.

[twister]

Yertis said:

But steam locomotives and railways are part of the very fabric of the nation – hovercraft are just a slightly interesting technological cul de sac.

Cul de sac? Hovercraft are still widely used around the world in a number of civil and military roles, and as the country that gave birth to the technology it seems a crying shame that we could end up losing these examples forever.

[Yertis]

twister said:

Cul de sac? Hovercraft are still widely used around the world in a number of civil and military roles, and as the country that gave birth to the technology it seems a crying shame that we could end up losing these examples forever.

Yes but not these kinds of great big ones.

[///ajd]

Yertis said:

twister said:

Cul de sac? Hovercraft are still widely used around the world in a number of civil and military roles, and as the country that gave birth to the technology it seems a crying shame that we could end up losing these examples forever.

Yes but not these kinds of great big ones.

The US mil still have great big ones.

It was invented here. What is not to like and be a bit proud of?

[twister]

///ajd said:

Yertis said:

twister said:

Cul de sac? Hovercraft are still widely used around the world in a number of civil and military roles, and as the country that gave birth to the technology it seems a crying shame that we could end up losing these examples forever.

Yes but not these kinds of great big ones.

The US mil still have great big ones.

It was invented here. What is not to like and be a bit proud of?

As do the Russians, very very big ones... And aren't the SRN4's still the largest passenger hovercraft ever built? That alone ought to be sufficient justification to earn at least one of them safety in a museum collection somewhere.

[Yertis]

I must admit I didn't realise the militaryvstillused great big ones, I was only considering their use as ferrys like these. Look, I'm all for preserving historic engineering artifacts, but if we can't even keep a Concorde indoors and in decent nick, what chance do these things stand?

[Scuffers]

if we can afford £4.2m revamp for a steam train, (and it's not like it's the only one left) why can we not save the ONLY big passenger hovercraft?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-35...

[vournikas]

Some encouraging news:-

https://www.change.org/p/homes-and-communities-age...

[longshot]

Good news indeed.

[hidetheelephants]

Should be a shoo-in for lottery money to get her weathertight and arrest any further deterioration given her unicorn status; hopefully the HCA might be persuaded to offer a longer lease too, which would make fundraising for the rest of the museum a lot easier.

[saaby93]

vournikas said:

Some encouraging news:-

https://www.change.org/p/homes-and-communities-age...

[Flying Phil]

Good news indeed!

[rs1952]

I see they are having their Hovershow at Lee on Solent this weekend.

I shall try to get down there to show a bit of support.

http://www.hovercraft-museum.org/hovershow-2016/