
What happened to passenger hovercraft? - yitchelle
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34658386
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btilly
Nice pictures and stories, but no answer to the actual question.

A hovercraft has to maintain a cushion of air. That means that it can only
handle waves that are small relative to it. You never want even one wave to
wipe out that cushion.

So a hovercraft has to be big. It doesn't want to go over open water with
large seas. Therefore it winds up going over short stretches of relatively
sheltered water. Given its speed, it will make many trips. You want it
carrying people every time. So you need a high volume of potential traffic.

However when civil engineers see a short stretch of relatively sheltered water
separating people who want to go back and forth, eventually they build a
bridge or tunnel there. And then nobody needs that hovercraft any more.

Now we can improve hovercraft technology. We can possibly find new routes
where the new hovercraft makes economic sense. But eventually that too will be
doomed by the same facts. We have ever improving bridge and tunnel technology.
And the hovercraft always loses once one of those is built.

~~~
digi_owl
If thats the case, i do wonder why both USA and Russia have hovercrafts in
their navies. Hovercrafts that at least in the US case is supposed to handle
landing troops from beyond the horizon rapidly. If they can't handle waves
then they seem oddly limited for such usage.

~~~
btilly
My understanding is that the US tried hovercraft out in Vietnam, and then
abandoned them. By contrast the Soviet Union put a lot of effort into them.

For military use, hovercraft have the ability to travel on water, mud, ice,
and fairly flat land at very high speed. These are very interesting
characteristics that are worth some compromises. The case for them is more
compelling if you are considering military engagements on a variety of
difficult terrains near you (like the Soviet Union was) rather than only
engaging in military engagements that take place large oceans away (like the
US). Plus several military targets for the Soviet Union were across relatively
calm water (the Baltic and Black seas) which look very, very different than
the open Atlantic and Pacific.

Secondly, military hovercraft do not need the same reliability when faced with
waves. Not being able to handle a once in a hundred year wave would be a
problem for a commercial hovercraft that is hoped to be in constant service
for decades without a crash. For the military, if you can only deploy it 80%
of the time, then you're happy that you've got an 80% chance of having it
available when you need it. So they don't have to overbuild so much.

Besides, a once in decades of operation disaster doesn't seem like such a
priority when you're worrying about enemy fire!

~~~
digi_owl
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_Craft_Air_Cushion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_Craft_Air_Cushion)

Abandoned?

~~~
btilly
You're right, I was wrong.

I was aware that a handful of Bell SK-5s were used during Vietnam and then
disbanded. I didn't realize that the US military had continued to develop the
idea.

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buserror
I did a single channel crossing on a hovercraft back then. _never_ _again_.
I'm pretty sure I'm an inch shorter since that trip. The sea wasn't terribly
bad (by channel standard) but the journey was absolutely horrendous, felt like
someone kicking you repeatedly in the butt for the whole way.

So yeah, fast, and cool, but hey, I'd rather sip my coffee on a ferry any day
instead of having to hold to the chair I'm sitting on :-)

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iamben
Growing up, if the wind was right, I used to be able to hear the Ryde-Southsea
hovercraft mentioned in the article from my bedroom window, about a KM away.
It's still a really exciting way to cross the Solent. And slightly cheaper
than everything else (which is nice, because the Solent is incredibly
expensive to cross).

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anonymfus
Since 2008 until 2014 there was a regular public transit hovercraft service in
Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia:

[https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Логопром_—_Борский_перевоз](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Логопром_—_Борский_перевоз)

