Saturday, April 21, 2012

112/366 - New Brighton Hovercraft

A couple of weeks ago we (as in my workplace) had a visit from one of our rescue hovercrafts. Here's a photo of them about to leave:



I took the photo on my new phone and because I'd turned the screen brightness right down to save battery power, it meant that I couldn't see which button I was pressing. As a result, I took a (very!) short video of the hovercraft leaving (you can see it rising up as the curtain is inflated, though):


5 comments:

  1. Cool. How far off the ground can those hover? I didn't know hovercraft were 'reality'. Are they mainly for land or sea?

    Rose

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    Replies
    1. They don't really go off the ground. In the photos, that's them moving, so that's as high as they go.

      They're used for rescues - often from quicksand/mud - when the water's not very deep. They're perfectly happy going over water (there used to be a large one that did cross-Channel trips from England to France and back) but are ideal (for us from a rescue point of view) for when there's not much water.

      The only restriction is that the sea can't be too high - it has to be reasonably flat.

      Delete
    2. So, the Dover-Calais hovercraft route has been stopped?

      Delete
  2. Neat!
    I saw a show on how those are made.
    They are really something else.

    Calma

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