It's difficult to establish exactly when Mel Beardsley conceived the air-cushion vehicle, but he worked on a Navy hydrofoil project in southern California about 1950, and this was his first known involvement in marine vehicles. The air-cushion may have been a low-friction boat-hull solution, to which Beardsley added forced air as the missing element for the basic air- cushion vehicle. It is certain that Beardsley and the British inventor Cockerell conceived the air-cushion vehicle independently. It was not possible for them to have known of each other's work.
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The United States Coast Guard displayed their Air Cushion Vehicle hovercraft at the expo, where tens of thousands of visitors examined it every day. The craft also conducted a daily test flight in front of thousands of onlookers, making it the first Coast Guard vehicle of its kind to do so. The Coast Guard estimates that 1.2 million people saw the Air Cushion Vehicle over the course of the whole expo.
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Almaz Central Marine Design Bureau () is a company based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation. Almaz is a leading designer of high-speed combat ships and boats, including dynamically supported craft (hydrofoils, hovercraft, and surface-effect ships). Almaz is the designer of the Dergach missile air cushion vehicle, the Nanuchka and Tarantul-class missile corvettes, the Matka-class missile hydrofoil, the Pauk- class anti-submarine warfare vessel, and the Pomornik-class air cushion vehicle.
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In North America, the type was marketed under the designation of Bell SK-5. Seven SR.N5s were directly sold to Bell; the type was militarised into the Patrol Air Cushion Vehicle (PACV) and adopted by the US military.
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However, the start of World War II put an end to Levkov's development work. During World War II, an American engineer, Charles Fletcher, invented a walled air cushion vehicle, the Glidemobile. Because the project was classified by the U.S. government, Fletcher could not file a patent.
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SK-5 City of Oakland The SR.N5 was the world's first commercially successful hovercraft; it was placed onto various routes around the world. At least two of the Bell-built SK-5s were placed into civilian service."Air- Cushion Vehicle International Supplement." Flight International, 30 December 1965. p. 77.
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There were only three Navy PACVs and three Army ACVs during the whole Vietnam War. Two of the three ACVs (No. 901 and 902) were Assault Air Cushion Vehicles (AACV), weapons-heavy vessels configured for attack missions, while the other (No. 903) was a Transport Air Cushion Vehicle (TACV) configured for logistics missions.
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In 1958, Melville W. Beardsley founded National Research Associates company and settled on Whiskey Bottom Road in 1961. NRA developed and tested over 30 air cushion vehicles, with the Air Gem Air cushion vehicle produced as their first product. NRA also sold Disney's Flying Saucers attraction under license. The Company went out of business in 1963.
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The LACV-30 was derived from the civilian Bell Voyageur air-cushion vehicle (hovercraft). It is capable of carrying 30 tons (27 tonnes). The hull is that of a large barge, but behind the deck house at the stern, there are 2 air propellers, which are followed by rudders, while under the hull there is a cushion of air which is inflated by 2 fans.
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While technically a success, the whole project was dropped due to financial constraints. A Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air Car from the late 1950s In August 1961, Popular Science reported on the Aeromobile 35B, an air-cushion vehicle (ACV) that was invented by William Bertelsen and was envisioned to revolutionise the transportation system, with personal hovering self-driving cars that could speed up to .
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A Formula 1 racing hovercraft SR.N4 hovercraft arriving in Dover on its last commercial route across the English Channel LCAC A US Army LACV-30 (Lighter Air Cushion Vehicle - 30 Ton) hovercraft transports ground support equipment to shore in 1986 A hovercraft, also known as an air-cushion vehicle or ACV, is an amphibious craft capable of travelling over land, water, mud, ice, and other surfaces. Hovercraft use blowers to produce a large volume of air below the hull, or air cushion, that is slightly above atmospheric pressure. The pressure difference between the higher pressure air below the hull and lower pressure ambient air above it produces lift, which causes the hull to float above the running surface. For stability reasons, the air is typically blown through slots or holes around the outside of a disk- or oval-shaped platform, giving most hovercraft a characteristic rounded-rectangle shape.
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The Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) is a class of air-cushion vehicle (hovercraft) used as landing craft by the United States Navy's Assault Craft Units and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF). They transport weapons systems, equipment, cargo and personnel of the assault elements of the Marine Air/Ground Task Force both from ship to shore and across the beach. It is to be replaced by the SSC.
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A hovercraft, or air-cushion vehicle, is a vehicle or craft that can be supported by a cushion of air ejected downwards against a surface close below it, and can in principle travel over any relatively smooth surface, such as gently sloping land, water, or marshland, while having no substantial contact with it. In Europe, the HSC2000 regulation craft less one Ton(1000 kg) for a personal hovercraft.
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The third stage of the TACV project was a complete LIM-powered hovertrain with passenger seating, the Urban Tracked Air Cushion Vehicle (UTACV). Rohr Industries won the contract with a design based on Bertin's Aérotrain,Volpe 1969, p. 53 and delivered the prototype to HSGTC in Pueblo in 1974. However, there was almost no money left over, so the Rohr vehicle received only of track, on which a maximum of only was possible.
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Thereafter, the business went from strength to strength using specially constructed ships that ensured the fruit arrived in good condition after the long Atlantic crossing.Davies, 1990, p. 87 In 1960, at Bembridge Airport, Isle of Wight, Britten-Norman Ltd began trials of their new Cushioncraft, their name for an air-cushion vehicle built for Elders and Fyffes. It was used to study the potential of this type of vehicle for the carriage of bananas from overseas plantations.
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As part of the High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965, the Federal Railway Administration (FRA) received funds to develop a series of high-speed trains. In addition to funding development of the successful UAC TurboTrain and more conventional projects, the FRA also took out licenses on Bertin's designs and started efforts to build several prototype vehicles under the Tracked Air Cushion Vehicle (TACV) program.Volpe 1969, p. 51 TACV envisioned a LIM powered hovertrain with performance.
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Europe's high-speed rail system, including TGV Lines in France The idea of the TGV was first proposed in the 1960s, after Japan had begun construction of the Shinkansen (also known as the "bullet train") in 1959. At the time the Government of France favoured new technology, exploring the production of hovercraft and the Aérotrain air-cushion vehicle. Simultaneously, the SNCF began researching high-speed trains on conventional tracks. In 1976, the administration agreed to fund the first line.
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Following his retirement from the Air Force in 1968, Broughton worked as a pilot for Antilles Air Boats in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, Conroy Aircraft managing a contract for aerial resupply of Mobil Oil operations on the Alaska North Slope, and as a manager in the flight test program and a technical planning advisor for the Space Shuttle Endeavour for Rockwell International. He also formed a corporation seeking to develop a practical bus-sized air cushion vehicle. He died in Lake Forest, California on October 24, 2014, at the age of 89.Goldstein, Richard.
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The LACV-30 (Lighter Air Cushion Vehicle, 30 tons) was a hovercraft used by the U.S. Army Mobility Equipment Research and Development Command (MERADCOM) for offloading cargo from amphibious ships. For logistic transport, the Army was already using the LARC-V and LARC-LX, huge 4-wheeled vehicles referred to as 'barges on wheels'. The Army used the LACV-30 to transport 20 ft. standard MILVAN containers as well as outsize loads that would not fit on a LARC-V or LARC-LX. MERADCOM operated 24 LACV-30s between 1983 and 1994.
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The capability of hovering above the ground eliminates the need for tires, and unlike an air-cushion vehicle, it does not produce a dust cloud. The closest real-world devices are the hovercraft, which elevates itself above a water or level hard surface using a cushion of air retained by a flexible skirt, and the hovertrain, which is a type of high-speed train that replaces conventional steel wheels with hovercraft lift pads, and the conventional railway bed with a paved road-like surface, known as the "track" or "guideway".
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BHC SR.N4 Mk.3, a large civilian hovercraft An air-cushion vehicle (ACV) or hovercraft can travel over land or water supported by a cushion of air ejected downwards against the surface below it. In principle, a hovercraft can travel over any sufficiently smooth surface: solid, liquid, mixed, or anything in between. Large hovercraft, riding on an air-cushion contained by skirts several meters tall, can deal with obstacles 1 to 2 meters in height. The smallest personal hovercraft are nimble enough to follow some rolling of the terrain.
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In order to expedite these developments, they had recently selected a parcel of land outside Pueblo, Colorado as a test site that would become the Transportation Technology Center (TTC). They planned on using the TTC to lower the cost of all-up testing of advanced designs, as well as guaranteeing that all the participants would have a level playing field. Several U.S. companies were in the process of building hovertrain systems based on technology licensed from the French Aérotrain project, known under the U.S. term "Tracked Air-Cushion Vehicle", or "TACV", and these were in the process of being set up at the TTC. Several models of proposed developments were shown at Transpo.
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In 1960, Ohio State University's Communication and Control Systems Laboratory launched a project to develop driverless cars which were activated by electronic devices embedded in the roadway. Head of the project, Dr. Robert L. Cosgriff, claimed in 1966 that the system could be ready for installation on a public road in 15 years. In the early 1960s, the Bureau of Public Roads considered the construction of an experimental electronically controlled highway. Four states – Ohio, Massachusetts, New York and California – were bidding for the construction. In August 1961, Popular Science reported on the Aeromobile 35B, an air-cushion vehicle (ACV) that was invented by William Bertelsen and was envisioned to revolutionize the transportation system, with personal self-driving hovering cars that could speed up to 150 Mph.
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