For #TBT, these
excerpts from a 1966 Australian newspaper article give you a glimpse of the
origin of Neoteric Hovercraft …
Successful Hovercraft Trials on Lake Colac
Two days of hovercraft trials climaxed yesterday when a blue and yellow experimental hovercraft
skimmed from a paddock at Cororooke across Lake Colac and up the shore near
Ross’ Point.
Aeronautical research technician Chris Fitzgerald swings
the propeller of the hovercraft for a trail run
in Mr. Ted Boylan’s paddock at
Cororooke. In the cockpit is pilot Rob Wilson.
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More than
20 carloads of people went to the lake yesterday afternoon to watch the craft …
it rose gently on a cushion of air and with the slipstream from its aircraft
propeller fanning the onlookers, it skimmed smoothly across the grass – for about
100 yards.
Then it
came to a sudden halt “aground” in a slight depression in the paddock. It took
four men on the end of a rope to get it moving again. “Far too rough,” muttered the leader of the team, 22-year-old Chris Fitzgerald. “We’ll keep getting
stuck.”
But he and his assistants were not out to turn on a
display. The purpose of their visit to Colac was to carry out final trials with
the one-man, 16-foot hovercraft to iron out technical problems before going
ahead with building a larger hovercraft capable of carrying four people and
skimming two feet off the ground. Their present hovercraft has a clearance of
little more than 4 inches.
Then the hovercraft struck a heap of rocks in the
paddock, tearing the fiberglass curtains which retain the air under it and
damaging the bow. This affected the performance of the craft but the team
decided to go ahead with runs over the lake … finally the hovercraft glided in
a wide arc across the smooth water and up onto the shore. Cameramen and
photographers recorded the run.
The idea of building the hovercraft originated in the
minds of a group of former ATC cadets who were studying at the School of
Mechanical Engineering at Melbourne University four years ago. They joined
forces under the name of “Australian Air Cushion Vehicles Development”, which
they hope to register soon as a company.
The original group of about 20 University students has
dwindled to three, but they are keen to push ahead and have already prepared
plans for a larger 100 hp hovercraft. They are Chris Fitzgerald, a technical
assistant at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories; Rob Wilson, 21, an
automotive technician with the Gas and Fuel Corporation; and Ron Davies, a
Melbourne fireman.
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