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YARP
09-09-2011, 07:49 AM
Last night I swing by my buddys house to pick up my truck that he's been working on and see him flying around his backyard/pond on a hovercraft. I think to myself "this guy buys the most ridiculous toys" and walk out side to check it out. I have limited experiance with these from the FD river and ice rescue. They are, to say the least, a ridiculous amount of fun. Controllable? only some what and even that takes alot of practice. It's kind of like drifting in a sports car, except your "drifting" 90% of the time:shock:!
So he asks if I want to take it for a spin which is a no brainer. I jump in the drivers seat and low and behold in jumps my dog. I wasn't to surprised since it's a vehicle and he does go everywhere with me, but I thought he would shy away from the absolutely obnoxious noise of the fan. We get started and I realize that he's literally having the time of his life standing on the front of the hover, ears back, wind whipping in his face, barking his head off at anything and everything. This really has nothing to do with what I'm getting at other then I can't tell you how much enjoyment I got out of it as well as my pup. He can't stand boats (except for flat bottoms) so it was a pretty cool experiance to get him on the water.

After we got over driving in circles (or should I say drifting:biggrin:!) I told my buddy I hadn't had that much fun in months. He says to me "good, welcome to our new duck and deer blind, you better get used to sitting in it for hours on end". I'd heard of people using them as duck boats but never seen it. He showed me the camo he had made for it (kind of like a quick set blind) and showed me a few spots that we'll be hunting on the map this year. These are spots that people wish they could get to, you know the ones where you wonder how the hell deer got there. We've been looking at these spots since we were kids but have never gotten the chance to hunt them due to water and being able to get the deer out of there as well as just getting ourselves and our gear out of there. I'm expecting this season to be epic and will be taking more then one whitetail for jerky and freezer meat for once.

Ok, to the meat of said discussion. Hovercrafts, who has one here? What do you use it for? Was yours a homebuilt or commercially bought? Has anyone served any time on one? What other uses other then fun and recreation would you use it for if you had one? What kind of insurance do you need on it? Tell me more for those with knowledge!

Looks like fun, doesn't it!?
http://www.youtube.com/user/UniversalHovercraft#p/a/u/2/QXm7z3i-OEg
http://www.youtube.com/user/UniversalHovercraft#p/u/0/Ju7e3E0JMlY

BigEd63
09-09-2011, 08:47 AM
With all the waterways surrounding my area I've seriously thought of building one.

YARP
09-09-2011, 09:04 AM
With all the waterways surrounding my area I've seriously thought of building one.

I'm in the same boat (no pun intended), and with all the flooding that's happening all over the east coast I was thinking there were probably some folks out there that wished they had one the past month.

BigEd63
09-09-2011, 09:32 AM
The one with the "wings" (ground effect?) realy caught my eye as debri around here can be bad at times in river bottoms.

Plus the ability to maybe hop a fence.

fate
09-09-2011, 11:29 AM
That is beyond awesome. And...I'll just leave this here:

http://www.hoverbike.com

17413

Netpackrat
09-11-2011, 08:48 PM
If I didn't already have so many projects....

YARP
09-12-2011, 07:08 AM
If I didn't already have so many projects....

Yeah, no kidding. I actually spent Saturday going through unfinished projects that I've lost interest in so I could recoup my losses through Craigslist. WHOA! I need to finish what I start (or not jump in to so many projects all at once). Oddly enough, while staring at an empty frame of a project I thought to myself "that would make the perfect frame for a hovercraft! All I need to do is....." It's a vicious circle.

RayMich
09-12-2011, 08:47 AM
Hovercrafts are fun and I sure would love to play with one. However, I consider them more of novelty than anything else. I would not want to use them for ice rescue if I can at all help it. A couple of years ago we had a couple of Sheriff deputies who died while attempting an ice rescue, when the main fan motor in their hovercraft died and the craft capsized and sank in rough frigid waters.

For ice rescue I would prefer an air boat like they run in the everglades. It really surprises me that we don't see more air boats being used for ice rescue. The air boat can go just about every place where the hovercraft can go and you don't run the risk of capsizing if the main fan motor dies while you are trying to pull people out of the water.

A few years ago, I was out in the everglades on an air boat and that thing was a blast. Water, sand, low mangroves, nothing bothered the big Chevy 454cid V8 powering the big aircraft prop. That thing ran just as fast on sand as it did on water with 10 people on board.

YARP
09-12-2011, 08:59 AM
Raymich-do you have a link? That's horrid. The hovercraft is what we used for ice rescues also, we found that air boats don't do so well on rocky river beds (where a majority of our rescues took place) or as well in white water. What company was this craft from that cap sized? There supposed to stay afloat when the engines off!:scared1:

RayMich
09-12-2011, 09:25 AM
Raymich-do you have a link? That's horrid. The hovercraft is what we used for ice rescues also, we found that air boats don't do so well on rocky river beds (where a majority of our rescues took place) or as well in white water. What company was this craft from that cap sized? There supposed to stay afloat when the engines off!:scared1:

I will see if I can find a link. This happend two or three years ago maybe longer and it really shook my confidence on hovercrafts.

RayMich
09-12-2011, 09:51 AM
I'm still looking for the incident where the rescuers died. I read about the incident in our local newspaper, so I'm having a hard time finding it.

Here are a couple of different incidents of hovercrafts sinking.
http://www.thesurvivorsclub.org/extreme/surviving-accidents/sinking-hovercraft-three-survive

http://www.firehouse.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44404

Here is some info about air boats used for rescue operations.
http://www.airboatafrika.com/use-airboats/search-rescue/rescue-emergencies/

Here is an older incident in Lake St. Clair where the hovercradft capsized. Furtunately all were rescued this time.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=19981230&id=1q0sAAAAIBAJ&sjid=5x4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=4790,5306894

Netpackrat
09-12-2011, 02:22 PM
Yeah, no kidding. I actually spent Saturday going through unfinished projects that I've lost interest in so I could recoup my losses through Craigslist. WHOA! I need to finish what I start (or not jump in to so many projects all at once). Oddly enough, while staring at an empty frame of a project I thought to myself "that would make the perfect frame for a hovercraft! All I need to do is....." It's a vicious circle.

Airboats are very common in the part of Alaska where I grew up, and they are capable, but also potentially quite dangerous. A hovercraft has its own issues, but an airboat requires a significant amount of forward speed to operate, so it's easy to get in a wreck if you try to go over something that ends up stopping the airboat. A friend of mine got catapulted from the driver's seat once when he tried going over a sandbar that ended up being too high/dry. A hovercraft can at least cross questionable areas at lower speed.

RayMich
09-15-2011, 11:37 AM
Airboats are very common in the part of Alaska where I grew up, and they are capable, but also potentially quite dangerous. A hovercraft has its own issues, but an airboat requires a significant amount of forward speed to operate, so it's easy to get in a wreck if you try to go over something that ends up stopping the airboat. A friend of mine got catapulted from the driver's seat once when he tried going over a sandbar that ended up being too high/dry. A hovercraft can at least cross questionable areas at lower speed.

Hummm, I guess they must have different bottom configuration in Florida. The air boat I was on, we were able to crawl along at very slow speeds over low mangroves as well as over sandbars and driftwood lying on the sand, while looking for alligators. Very interesting...

Netpackrat
09-15-2011, 01:39 PM
Hummm, I guess they must have different bottom configuration in Florida. The air boat I was on, we were able to crawl along at very slow speeds over low mangroves as well as over sandbars and driftwood lying on the sand, while looking for alligators. Very interesting...

Or, it's possible that my understanding of their capabilities is not totally accurate, because I don't think I've ever seen one being operated at less than full throttle. Watched some guys jump a beaver dam in an airboat near where I was fishing once. I resolved then and there if I ever got into an airboat, that I'd be extremely careful as to who was driving. Never did get the opportunity, which doesn't really bother me.