In the
mid-1960s, John Talmage, a farmer and a pilot, and his 5- and 9-year old sons
Henry and Bill, built a hovercraft from photos he’d seen in Popular Mechanics. Today, the original
Talmage hovercraft hangs from the rafters of an aircraft hangar on their farm …
What
followed is a true example of “six degrees of separation”. When he built his
hovercraft, John’s sister Mary Ellen lived in Melbourne, Australia. Her
landlord was Derrick Ravenscroft, a British draftsman at The Aeronautical
Research Laboratories, where Neoteric’s now-President Chris Fitzgerald was
employed. Mary Ellen showed Ravenscroft photos of “the crazy thing my
brother and his sons built.” Ravenscroft then showed the photos to
Fitzgerald.
When
Fitzgerald moved to the USA in 1975 and founded Neoteric Hovercraft, Inc., John
Talmage financed the first hovercraft manufactured by the company: the original
Neova 2, constructed of wood and fiberglass. Here, the Neova 2 is parked
outside the Talmage hangar at their Riverhead Farm just after its arrival from
Neoteric in Terre Haute, Indiana ...
This first
hovercraft was used to develop the Neova 2 hovercraft kit and to garner
publicity. Popular Mechanics soon published a feature story about
the Neova 2, which immediately kicked off sales of Neova 2 kits for Neoteric.
And, as they say, the rest is history.
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