ground-effect machine are really awful vehicles : Whether on demesne , water , clay or ice , these air - buffer craft find the unpaved wild . And they were born from a wildly optimistic and experimental geological era of engineering — as reflect by these incredible former prototypes and designs .
I recently came across a cluster of uncommon ground-effect machine photographs in a few old Magyar scientific magazine publisher and Book , and I forthwith require to share them with other ground-effect machine fans out there . Each one of these ships — from obscure prototypes and early output models to insane , never - produced imagination — reflect the ingenuity of 20th century engineering science . Just see for yourself .
Source : Korunk technikája , Gondolat , Budapest , 1964 .
The Ford Aeronutronic.
The US Navy’s Hughes Hydrostreak XHS1.
The Bell SKMR-1 Hidroskimmer, an experimental US Navy hovercraft intended for submarine reconnaissance.
D-1 prototype hovercraft designed by Denny Hovercraft Ltd.
The Saunders-Roe SR.N1 (“Saunders-Roe Nautical 1”) was the first practical hovercraft.
origin : Népszerű Technika , 1959 . szeptember
A cutaway illustration of the next generation SR.N2. Only one was built, but it can be regarded as the prototype for commercial hovercrafts.
The Westland/Saunders-Roe SR.N2 hovercraft could carry 48 passengers.
Source : Népszerű Technika , 1962 . augusztus
The first Vickers hovercraft prototype, the VA-1.
Small-scale ferry service: the British United Airways’s Vickers-Armstrong VA-3 hovercraft.
A modified Land Rover truck for farmers, also by Vickers.
The Curtiss-Wright Air-Car.
The Cushioncraft (CC-1), a British hovercraft prototype gliding on a ring-shaped air cushion.
The Cushioncraft-2 (CC-2) could carry 12 passengers.
The French Bertin had eight separate air-cushion rings.
GEM-1, a US Army prototype with two frontal propellers.
The GEM-3.
Pioneer-1, a simple and cheap hovercraft built by the Manufacturing Company Of Seattle.
A cross-section drawing of the Pioneer-1.
Motor-cycle: The first hovercraft bike!
X-2, an experimental Air-Scooter developed at Princeton University.
A Soviet prototype, the one-man Vezdekhod.
Dr. William R. Bertelsen, a medical doctor from Illinois who developed a craft called the aeromobile.
Dr. Bertelsen’s upgraded Aeromobile.
Here’s the Ilen by Weiland, a strange box-shaped hovership.
And Neva, a Soviet-era air-cushion ship.
Zarya, another Soviet passenger hovercraft, was intended for crossing shallow lakes and rivers.
author : Utak és járművek – A Szovjetúnió közlekedése . Magyar – Szovjet Baráti Társaság , 1975 .
A definitive Soviet beauty: The Sormovich hovercraft. It could reach 74.5 MPH and carry up to 50 passengers over frozen rivers.
A smaller Soviet hovercraft—this one used to cruise on rivers.
This concept art shows the near future, when large hovercrafts will cross the La Manche channel.
This is how the engineers at the British Hovercraft imagined the traffic on the La Manche channel, filled with 100-ton-vessels of the near future.
Another artist’s rendering of a futuristic hovercar.
generator : Népszerű Technika , 1960 . január
And an artist’s impression of a futuristic hovercar by Robert Szenes, complete with fins and headlights.
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