We first heard of hovercrafts in 1716 when Swedish scientist Emanuel Swedenborg came up with an idea for vehicle to hover over the ground.
Then in 1870s Sir John Isaac Thornycroft patented first lookalike hovercraft. Unfortunately, in his time building one wasn’t possible yet due to lack of possibilities to achieve enough power for it to work.
But later on, in 1915 Dagobert Müller von Thomamühl build first hovering boat and it was powered by five aero engines; two under water, two above water and one pressurizing cushion. Because of early start of this type of machines it could fully hover only when in motion and it wasn’t able to transition between land and water.
Beside these baby steps in hovering, the biggest milestone was achieved by a British man named Sir Christopher Cockerell who was testing how exactly hovering works. He carried out a basic experiment with two tins, one in another thanks to this he started designing vehicles with that concept in mind. After many sketches, he built his hovercraft which was able to travel across Canal La Manche on 25th July 1959. After this big achievement, there was big revolution in transport during 60s and 70s when these machines took over rough terrains and water passes similar to the gap between France and UK.
Kommentare