Air cushion vehicles were allocated registrations with the prefix 'GH-', e.g., GH-2012, the BHC SR.N6 that carried out the first hovercraft expedition up the Amazon, and the Mountbatten-class SR.N4's GH-2006 Princess Margaret and GH-2004 Swift.
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This appeared in an early 1970s episode of Let's Make a Deal. This is an Air Cycle 720 made by Air Cushion Vehicles of Troy, New York valued at $1,495 at the time. It could go up to 40 MPH.
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One may say that "the idea was in the air" and inevitable. Beardsley's further personal research led to his patents of the early 1950s. After completing another 7 years of military service, Beardsley founded National Research Associates, Inc. (NRA) in College Park and Laurel, Maryland to build practical air-cushion vehicles.
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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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Mel Beardsley worked from 1965 to 1976 with the Naval Ship Research and Development Center (NSRDC) near Annapolis, Maryland. The large air-cushion vehicles used today by the US military are largely a product of their design and testing. In his retirement he invented, tested, and patented the Beachbuilder system of beach erosion prevention. Beardsley died 26 November 1998.
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It had a range of and endurance of seven hours The Army hovercraft, called Air Cushion Vehicles, had more extensive modifications. They had heavier armor and reinforced, load-bearing decks. Army ACVs carried of armor—roughly equal to that of an M113 armored personnel carrier. The armor was thickest around the engine, transmission, and fuel tanks, providing protection from .
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This version was running in 1965 and shown publicly the next year at Hovershow '66. A later modification would move the LIM rail from the top to the side of the guideway."Track Section Chosen for UK Hovertrain", Flight International Air-Cushion Vehicles supplement, 17 November 1967, pp. 71–72 At this point the project entered hiatus for lack of funding.
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In 1951 Kemurdzhian began working at the Leningrad-based All-Union Scientific-Research Institute No. 100 (VNII-100, now known as VNIITransmash), whose "primary expertise was building tanks for the Soviet Army." Kemurdzhian's research focused on continuously variable transmission in tracked vehicles. In 1957 he defended his kandidat nauk thesis. From 1959 on Kemurdzhian led research on air-cushion vehicles (hovercraft).
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In December 1963 a letter written by Owen Maddock appeared in Flight International's Air-Cushion Vehicles (ACV) supplement, wherein he stated that he was "extremely interested in air-cushion vehicles and would welcome an opportunity to work on the design and development of such a craft intended for racing ... Anyone interested?"Maddock (1963) Someone was indeed interested, and as early as January the next year Maddock and fellow ACV racing evangelist David Stevens had contacted Stirling Moss to solicit his opinion as to whether racing ACVs would be a popular proposition.Stevens (1964) Following a positive response, later in 1964 Maddock and a number of other amateur enthusiasts set up the Isle of Wight Hover Club, and then early in 1966 the national umbrella group the Hover Club of Great Britain that would become the Hovercraft Club of Great Britain. Maddock acted as technical secretary for the clubs for many years.
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The Regiment's infantry uses very small air cushion vehicles to improve their mobility. These are either one man "skimmers" or two man "jeeps"; the latter can be equipped with tribarrel powerguns, mortars, or a variety of command and sensor modules. Many vehicles in the Slammers universe, including all the armored fighting vehicles of Hammer's Regiment, are powered by magnetically contained fusion reactors. These are called "fusion bottles" in the Slammers universe.
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Only long, the line reaches a maximum speed of . A similar system also exists in Narita International Airport near Tokyo, Japan. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the U.S. Department of Transport's Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA) funded several hovertrain projects, which were known as Tracked Air Cushion Vehicles or TACVs. They were also known as Aerotrains since one of the builders had a licence from Bertin's Aerotrain company.
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She reached Chu Lai, Vietnam, 27 May and debarked the 9th Marine Engineers before sailing for Subic Bay to resume shuttling between Vietnam and nearby friendly ports, bringing materiel to the Allies. She participated in exercises "Hilltop VII" and "Mudpuppy I" in the Philippines before loading three experimental Navy Patrol Air Cushion vehicles on 15 December for transportation to San Diego. Back home early in January 1967, Gunston Hall prepared for future action.
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The tanks are supported by smaller "combat cars", armored air cushion vehicles that mount three 2 cm tribarrels. Combat cars have a crew of one driver, one vehicle commander who doubles as a gunner, and two wing gunners. The armor, sensors, redundancy, and artificial intelligence of the combat cars are not as extensive as those on the tanks. The combat car was inspired by Drake's recollection of the "ACAV" version of the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier.
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LCAC or Landing Craft Air Cushion are air cushion vehicles, operated by the U.S. Navy and Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force. The concept design for the modern day LCAC began in the early 1970s. The purpose of the LCACs are to "carry heavy vehicles and cargo" onto beaches at high speeds and over longer distances. The LCACs are currently undergoing a Service Life Extension Program (SLEP), which will be completed on all 72 craft by 2020.
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It is long and can carry a small number of special forces at over , compared to air- cushion vehicles than can travel at . VSVs are considered one of the most threatening craft in the Korean People's Army Naval Force for their commando infiltration capabilities onto border islands.N. Korea builds new high-speed infiltration boat - Koreatimes.co.kr, 23 March 2014 North Korea has built two helicopter frigates to enhance its anti-submarine warfare capabilities. Construction began in 2006-07 and launched in 2011–12, but it is unknown if they have been commissioned and are in service.
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Additionally, the lighter vehicles allow for a wider variety of suspension methods, from conventional steel wheels, to rubber tires, air cushion vehicles and maglevs. Since the system has to be automated in order to reduce the headways enough to be worthwhile, by automating the steering as well the operational costs can also be reduced compared to crewed vehicles. One key problem in an automated system is the steering system's negotiation of turns in the right-of-way. The simplest solution is to use a rigid guideway, like conventional rails or steel rollercoasters.
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Originally developed at General Motors as an automated guideway transit system, GM was forced to divest the design as part of an antitrust ruling. The design eventually ended up at Otis Elevator who later replaced its linear motor with a cable pull and sold the resulting design for people mover installations all over the world. Hovertrain is a generic term, and the vehicles are more commonly referred to by their project names where they were developed. In the UK they are known as tracked hovercraft, in the US they are tracked air-cushion vehicles.
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A Coast Guard ACV underway Following their withdrawal in 1970, the Navy PACVs were transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard for evaluation. The Coast Guard used PACVs, which they called Air Cushion Vehicles (ACVs), through 1975, when they cancelled the ACV program due to budget constraints. Two were stationed at Fort Point, San Francisco and the third was used for Arctic Trials in Point Barrow, Alaska, though they were also tested in the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay. The Coast Guard PACVs were modified to meet their requirements by replacing the .
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Nigel Desmond Norman, (13 August 1929 – 13 November 2002) was an aircraft designer and aviation pioneer. Norman co-founded Britten-Norman in 1954, was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1970, and served as chairman and managing director of AeroNorTec (1988–2002). With his longtime friend and business partner John Britten, he also designed, built and sailed racing yachts, as well as a series of air cushion vehicles and crop spraying equipment. He died of a heart attack at age 73 in 2002.
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Two different designs were made: one for the Navy and one for the Army. The Navy's hovercraft, called Patrol Air Cushion Vehicles, more closely resembled the civilian SK-5s that they were based on while the Army crafts had more extensive modifications. Each hovercraft was long, with a beam of and a height of when floating on its air cushion. It weighed fully loaded. Army and Navy PACVs had a crew of 4—driver, radar operator, and gunners—and could carry up to 12 troops, many of whom rode on the outside of the vehicle. Army ACV 903 undergoing pre-deployment testing shortly after being built Both designs were powered by a General Electric 7LM100-PJ102 gas turbine engine.
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A real benefit of air cushion vehicles in moving heavy loads over difficult terrain, such as swamps, was overlooked by the excitement of the British Government funding to develop high-speed hovercraft. It was not until the early 1970s that the technology was used for moving a modular marine barge with a dragline on board for use over soft reclaimed land. Mackace (Mackley Air Cushion Equipment), now known as Hovertrans, produced a number of successful Hoverbarges, such as the 250 ton payload "Sea Pearl", which operated in Abu Dhabi, and the twin 160 ton payload "Yukon Princesses", which ferried trucks across the Yukon River to aid the pipeline build. Hoverbarges are still in operation today.
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Three of the eight ran on rubber wheels, four were air cushion vehicles (hovercrafts) including a version of the French Aérotrain, while the German firm Krauss-Maffei entered its Transurban system, based on magnetically levitated train (maglev) technology. The space age maglev system immediately won the interest of the Davis government, and in the Phase II proposals they selected it for further study, along with the Ford ACT and Hawker Siddeley's entry, both of which used rubber tires. Ford withdrew when the ICTS varied too greatly from the system it wanted to develop, which was aimed primarily at sites in the U.S.Litvak & Maule, pg. 75 With only Hawker Siddeley and Krauss- Maffei remaining, the 1 May 1973 announcement that the Krauss-Maffei design had won the contest was unsurprising.
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