Hovercrafting, Have you ever been?

[callmedave]

Sorry if wrong forum GG seemed best.

I have a buy-a-gift hovercrafting experience for two (me and mrs) coming up.

Has anyone ever done a similar thing before? Any advice before i take to the wheel/handlebars?

Im looking forward to it and will try to get some pics on the days, we have a small introduction and basics, then a time trial and race at the end.

[RizzoTheRat]

Yes, brilliant fun. I've been a few times with a company called Wildcat hovercraft Racing near Maidenhead.

They send you out singly on timed laps rather than racing each other, as that would go horribly wrong. Handlebars control the rudders which turn the hovercraft but don't do a lot to your direction of travel It's a lot about weight shift, get your weight in to the inside of the corner and it'll turn a lot better.

I took my GoPro when we went on a work teambuilding day, it feels a lot faster than it looks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejN81nuo5s4

[Little Dave]

Have done it before over in Kent. It was good fun and as the above poster says it seems to be a lot about weight distribution. The craft do not turn particularly well but if you can put as much weight as possible onto the inside front edge when cornering the quicker it will turn.

[goneape]

I went once, it was a blast

[zed4]

My girlfriend's dad sells these: http://www.youtube.com/user/hovpod see here also https://www.facebook.com/HovPod

They are very cool!

[MattOz]

Yup. Used to race them in the national series. Fantastic fun. Would highly recommend having a go.

[Greg_D]

i too loved my go in a hovercraft, it is VERY counter-intuitive to bury the throttle when you want to turn, closing the throttle and turning the handlebars will just result in going straight on.

Fantastic fun though......

[callmedave]

Ive driven a jet ski in the past, Steering is controlled via directing the jet, so i suppose its similar to that.

On the Jet ski you can lean in, i also found that approaching a turn, off throttle, turn then full throttle, would allow for a sharper turn in, do you reckon the same for the hovercraft?

[Greg_D]

callmedave said:

Ive driven a jet ski in the past, Steering is controlled via directing the jet, so i suppose its similar to that.

On the Jet ski you can lean in, i also found that approaching a turn, off throttle, turn then full throttle, would allow for a sharper turn in, do you reckon the same for the hovercraft?

you can't 'spin' a jetski though, you can very easily find yourself going along, 90 degrees to the direction of travel in a HC (with a massive grin on your face) it is the very notion of barely controlled, noisy chaos that is most appealing with a hovercraft,

if you back off the throttle for too long, you also lose the skirt inflation, dig into the ground and flip it. Madness.......