Comments/Feedback Form If you have any comments or suggestions about this site I'd like to hear from you! If you'd like me to get back to you, please include an email address (I'm afraid I won't be able to get in touch by phone). If you have any photos or videos or stories you'd like to have put on the site of hovercraft or experiences/events around hovercraft, please tell me and I'll gratefully get back to you. All fields are optional. No details will ever be passed on for marketing purposes etc.. Fields marked with a * are required to be filled in for you to receive a reply. If your enquiry is regarding purchasing a hovercraft, please take a look at the Buy a Hovercraft page before contacting me, as the information you require may be provided by the companies listed. IMPORTANT: If your request is time sensitive, e.g. for a magazine article, publication, school project, etc., please tell me the timescale so I can prioritize my reply. In the meantime, try these three great resources: Hovercraft FAQ, Build at Hovercraft and "Designing and building a miniature air- cushioned vehicle for use on water". It may take me a while to get back to you (maybe months, sorry!) if you don't specify a time period, but rest assured I will reply when I can. Name * Email * Country Message * Please enter the number you see into the box below for validation purposes Please note that I cannot reply to you if you don't give a valid email address. If you send pictures, videos, photos or information to be hosted at James' Hovercraft Site, the original copyright and ownership of the material will remain yours and a credit to yourself will be shown next to the material you have provided. Any material you supply to be included in this website is much appreciated, thank you very much for your time and efforts in continuing to make this site a valuable resource for fellow viewers!

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Welcome to the Hover Tour!

Firstly thanks for visiting James' Hovercraft Site, I hope you enjoy your time here. I have created this Hover Tour to guide you through the basics of hovercraft, through increasingly complex principles and functions of the craft, and then finally to guide you through what I see as major milestones in the development of certain craft for civilian use, in terms of the histories and timelines of the SRN1, Vickers VA-3, SRN6, SRN4 and finally AP1-88. These craft span the 49 years from concept to present day, and, while there are indeed more craft than I can mention, and indeed some more modern ones like the US Navy's LCAC and the Russian Zubr class (now the biggest hovercraft in the world at 350+ tonnes), these 5 craft hold the key to the features of all modern vehicles.

The tour therefore consists of ten stopping points, feel free to skip points, browse them in a random order, or browse away from the tour at any point, you can get back to where you left off by clicking the links on the Home Page or by skipping ahead with the Hover Tour >>> button. Most images on this tour, as with the rest of this site, can be clicked, producing a larger version of the image in a popup window for easier viewing.

I hope you enjoy the tour! Happy hovering!

Basic terminology used in this tour

Knots: Speed as measured on water or in the air where no fixed point can be used for reference. In the early days, this was literally counting the number of knots passing a certain point on a rope dropped overboard from a ship in order to measure its speed. Now it is akin to Nautical Miles per Hour.

Nautical Mile: The equivalent distance of one minute of latitude or longitude at the equator. 1 Nmi = 1.15 statute miles.

kW: Kilowatt. Metric version of Horse Power, a measure of the useable energy given out by an engine. 1 kW = 1.34 hp

Page updated: 08/15/2010