Exactly what I was going to say as soon as Simon said hovercraft! It is the last one though. Sadly didn’t travel on it when I last went to Wight in 2006. Got the WightLink Ferry from the neighbouring dock in Portsmouth.
There is a hovercraft museum in Gosport (across the water from Portsmouth) and that's where the hovercraft used to leave from to travel to Isle of Wight
@@jamiekay133 I think he ended up referring to the specific model rather than them in general, but as far as I know, the Isle of Wight ferry is the last hovercraft route in the world.
Southsea (on the mainland) to Ryde (on the IoW) if I remember correctly. Hovertravel is the operator. They haven't got any SRN4s any more, they phased out all of their SRN4s, SRN5s and SRN6s and haven't had any since the early 80s. Their fleet these days just consists of a pair of Griffon 12000TDs. Those two hovercraft make Hovertravel the largest hovercraft operator in the world lol.
Fun fact. I once drove a standard US pickup truck into Big Muske's bucket -- and back out, only having to make one backup move. Almost made a U-turn without backing.
As I understand it, a lot of cargo ships today are designed to just let the big waves sweep over the deck. This fact scares me a little, for some reason :)
I rode a hovercraft across the channel in June 2000 on a trip to Europe with my high school French club. I had no idea it was about to become a thing of the past.❤
The Channel hovercraft weren't just loud, but uncomfortable in any sort of swell, since they bounced across the wave tops. I crossed to France on one once - and got a normal ferry back.
@@ThatGeezer I can see what you mean. I've only been on the Channel hovercraft once and that was when the weather wasn't that great. That was, well, exciting ... :D
I was trying to explain them to my kids, having crossed the channel in the early 70s in one and the best I could come up with it was like being on top of your washing machine while sitting on a cheap moulded plastic chairs you get in school.
I've been to the hovercraft museum at Lee on Solent. Highly recommended! You get to walk around the Princess Margret, as well as being able to see a number of other hovercraft rarities, including the first hovercraft prototype.
Simon do not just judge the hovercraft on the crossing you are forgetting it was quick to dock and faster to load, because they just glide in up a ramp and drop there own ramp and the cars just start rolling off/on, very fast indeed compared to a ferry.
No. A well designed ferry just doesn't need to glide up a ramp, but could break similarily good, while having a more secure and higher travel speed. All features, beside gliding on ice, can be done better without hovering and without further costs.
@urlauburlaub2222Wrong. The SR.N4 could travel at up to 83 knots. I travelled on it by motorcycle. These were loaded first on and first off at that time. England to France took a little over 40 minutes which included loading and unloading, they were very much faster than the equivalent cross-channel ferry services. The only disappointment was that the amount of spray they produced effectively meant there was no enjoying the view when crossing.
I grew up where the Big Muskie was operated. My dad used to build the roads it moved on. I got to go inside of it once when it was down for maintenance. I also knew a guy that was cut in half when one of the cables snapped during a cable replacement. The winch brake failed that caused a runaway of the spooling motor stretching the cable to the breaking point. The bucket would hold 3 Greyhound buses. There are pictures of them changing out the undercarriage, the number of machines needed to pull the belly pan out is staggering.
Big Muskie made the list!😊 I remember seeing it from a distance before it was disassembled. Edit: You can go stand in the bucket at Jessie Owens State Park in Ohio, not in The Wilds Safari Park which is actually about 12 miles away but worth the short drive.
The TU144 and Air France Concorde shown the stands are at the Technik Museum in Sinsheim Germany, you can go up on the roof of the building and climb inside them.
The TU144 looks like it was based on the toy model of the concorde, with all the energy spent afterwards to make it flyable with the lowest possible investment. A very "agile" "sprint", and propably they point fingers at the Concorde designers, they stole some of the papers.
We used to drive by Big Muskie between my parents' house and my grandparents' house when I was a kid. I've always loved heavy equipment, so it was always a big deal to everyone in the car.
The Concorde comparisons really keep going with them. They were easily the largest and fastest things afloat, but the only way to make them profitable was pushing them to an upmarket niche route to offset the fuel and maintenance costs
I remembered taking a hovercraft in Singapore to one of the southern islands of Bukom. It was a pretty fun experience. It must have been stopped a couple of decades ago.
I think moving that much cold air can cause problems, icing of props, etc. I'd assume at some point there's a lower temperature threshold at which they become risky or inefficient comparatively.
There are stories of these Flying over boats when crossing the channel, They do sit above the ground by quite a bit, to the point where the drivers are called Pilots, and the skirt is a flexible rubber and made of many pieces, making it harder to damage the whole skirt.....and the skirt isn't needed to the thing to fly, but it certainly makes it more efficient and controllable , not perfect but not like it's a weak or vulnerable craft. You are right, there would become a point where the temperature will effect the craft. But these are engineering problems that wouldn't be too hard to solve. Ultimate it'll come down to a cost/time analysis. It's unlikely that equipment would be lost as even worse case you can retrieved it after the ice has melted. If a route could be worked out using rivers these would be working all year around also.
Old enough to recall going to France on the Hovercrafts a good few times while I was a child, and man, they were bloody quick, yet smooth. I enjoyed the trips, was all part of the joys of travel.
Could have also been called the "Discordski", being discordant with good sensible design and unreliable. There was also the other supersonic airliner being developed but which was abandoned. That was the Boeing 2707, AKA the SST of the USA, bigger and faster than the concord or the TU144 but which became too costly and too complex.
@@Iris_and_or_George There is such a thing as convergent evolution from different lines of descent of animals or ideas but the TU144 is rather more than what would be accounted for in convergent evolution. Subsequent to the collapse of the Soviet Union documents prove the industrial spying involved.
I worked for SeaCat/Hovercraft back in the day. Most of my time was spent on WPC Fast Craft. The fast cats basically took over from the Mountbatten'. Not quite as fast at 36-38knts instead of 60knts they were considerably quieter, had greater carrying capacities and were more fuel efficient. By far their biggest advantage was their performance and stability in rougher weather. The SRN4's couldn't operate in weather force 5 or above. Even some conventional ferries won't go above force 7. The Seacat kept on trucking up to force 9 weather which is hitting storm force. Roughest I've ever been out in was aboard Seacat Scotland taking her light ship from Bel - Dover. Massive storm force 10-11 off the coast of Wales and it still felt like the ship was just having fun even while we were lashing the Cpt to the seat to stop him being thrown out it 😂 In 2005 rising fuel costs and competition from budget airlines ended SeaCat/Hoverspeed's run altogether. The old Incat 74's are with a Greek operator and being run into the ground with the previous Blue Riband holder Hoverspeed Great Britain laid up and being stripped for parts to keep her sisters the ex Seacat Scotland and Seacat France running. The Incat 81 Seacat Rapide and Diamant are with Balearia operating out of Florida.
The 20 minutes ride on the hovercraft from Dover to Calais was the most sickening thing I've done in all my life!!! Never before I got so sick - I wanted to die.
I had to literally pry my wife's hands off the arm rests, one finger at a time, she was so clenched from the experience. It was a nightmare that I'll never forget.
(laughs) I just knew it - if anyone wants to compare the Concorde with the TU-144 by visiting them both within an hour, they will have to travel to Sinsheim, Germany, as this is the only place where they are on display side by side. And what is visible in the background at 6:20? The name Sinsheim on a wing. Talking about excavators... the german lignite excavators work in a different way; they scoop the earth up with a rotating wheel that seen from the side looks like a buzzsaw, because the buckets are attached to the wheel. The wheel is attached to the end of a long arm and can be moved up and down. The arm again is attached to an engine house mounted on caterpillar tracks. On the other side there is a conveyor belt that moves the material back to a line that brings the coal to a factory, often a power plant. These machines are often more than 200 meters in length, 50 meters wide, and 95 meters high. The whole construction weighs more than 14,000 metric tons and is powered by electricity that is provided by a cable. If you ignore the latter (which means these machines do not run on their own power), they are the largest and longest ever made. They are still in action, but as Germany wants to cease the usage of fossil energy, their days are by now numbered.
I got to operate the 5th largest drag line walking crane in the world, in the early 1960's at Stears Sand and Gravel in Northport N.Y. I was 14 years old. The Busirus-Erie 23,000 Volt Electric Crane, something as large as a five story building with a 250+ foot long boom and a power cord, was surprisingly fast and agile, albeit slow walking. Digging was all a matter of timing. Imagine Fly Casting with a 30 yard bucket on a 250' poll using an office building. Your target was a point on a sand cliff one or two bucket lengths above the base of a sand cliff. Next load the bucket, then translate to a Conveyor / Hoper that lead to a Crushing Plant a couple of miles away. The skill came in landing the bucket in a way that did not collapse the cliff and burry the bucket. They also taught me to operate a CAT D8, spreading top soil down 700 ft sand cliffs as part of the reclamation process of the mine. It was dangerous to say the least. You controlled speed down the slope with the blade and direction with light touches on the clutches, no brakes! Get it wrong and you flip over and get buried at the bottom of the cliff. It was interesting and fun. Stears supplied the majority of the sand used to make concrete and asphalt for NY roads from the 1930 to the 1970's.
When travelling by hovercraft from England to France in 1977 (I was 12 years old) I was most disappointed that you saw nothing out of the windows as they were just a constant spray of seawater! Pretty smooth and rapid mode of transport however compared to the ferry.
I was on a hovercraft that was let out in the worst weather, the skirt flipped up smashed windows down one side passengers were injured lost radar and had to limp back to France. It was a nightmare, imagine being in a force 7 in the middle of the Channel sitting on the top of the biggest wave and then just dropping it was so scary. We ended up travelling along the French coast for miles trying to find the port. When we got back they then stuck us on a ferry to do it all over again. I flew a lot more after this😅
There was a documentary on Big Muskie a number of years ago that featured a video of it walking, and there was a commercial dumpster sitting on top of its foot. The foot also had a ladder up the side, but it reminded me of the opening of "Red Dwarf" on the BBC.
I wish you guys would have talked about what happened to the strip mine where Big Musky was. It was turned into a sort of safari park called The Wilds. It is a really wonderful place.
The SR N4 (not 94 as you kept saying) was really put to death over her engines, as you said she had four Bristol Sidley marine Proteus engines directly developed from the aviation version designed to power the very short lived Bristol Britannia, unfortunately when it was clear that large turboprop engines where completely obsolete they simply stopped making them and soon after stopped making parts for them. To re engine the SR N4 proved to be impossible as no similar engine existed.
The Canadian Coast Guard maintains two hovercraft, the CCGS Mamilossa and CCGS Sipu Muin, as part of its fleet. They are used very effectively for ice-breaking. They can go up rivers and break up ice during the spring melt, thus preventing dangerous floods. They are very effective for this niche function.
The actual thing is, that Big Muskie was not really about it's size but the bucket's size. The German Baggers were not only bigger, but also more efficient and more variable, but had external power sources, what reduces their weight. The Muskie was about the "independence" from everything but the oil powering it, what all added up to it's heavyness, without actually being the most heaviest even though massive amounts of oil in it. So, it was about having the biggest, independant "hand" shoveling up earth in one tug.
I was on a Navy patrol ship in Hong Kong, on our way up to Japan for a visit, and we passed the Seawise Giant. Coming through the haze it looked like an island! In fact, the officer of the watch did check to make sure that it wasn't as we were a few hundred miles from any coast. She was empty and on her way to the Gulf but man, I have never seen anything that size floating before or since.
I used to commute to the mainland every day from the Isle of Wight and would get the Hovercraft, and it is still running now. My father in law used to work at BHC (British Hovercraft Corporation now Westlands)
You failed to mention Silver City Airways, who using the Bristol 170 Freighter flew cars from the early '50's from back and forth from Lydd in Kent to Le Touquet, France.
I picked up on that as well. But I think we can assume he meant 'affordable' mass market transport in the same way conventional ferries were. Silver city could manage 1 or 2 cars at very high cost per trip.
I've made the journey on the cross-channel hovercraft, in 1973, in a VW campervan which had set out overland from Pakistan to the west coast of Ireland (and back!). Even though I was a child back then I still remember the crossing from France to Dover to this day.
I remember taking the hovercraft to Calais. The windows were pointless. Once the engines started then the windows were covered in water spray. The noise was beyond belief.
I use to have a couple of photos that I took to do with the size of a dragline ( not this one ). The 1st was from the public road showing a dragline with what look like tiny little cranes with it. the other photo was of one of those cranes closer, they were the biggest road transportable with only a little on-site construction ( The crane would drive to site with only 1 other semi trailer of bits to bolt on to use it ) it was huge. I have also been on one when it went for a walk, not fast but something that big going that fast...
I actually remember HoverSpeed in the 80's. I never rode on it but my dad was working in west Africa and he would do some weird thing where he would go from Paris across the channel and fly to the states out of London. He had pictures of these boats.
The trouble with the Big hovercraft was the Fuel they used massive amounts of even at the time expensive fuel ...later experts said they could have been converted to run on a less expensive fuel but by then it was to late ..
I was on the motor ferry in 1985. It was announced about the accident with the hover craft. We were told that when the ferry was entering the sea wall, a 16 feet wave hit the hovercraft and pushed it into the sea wall. The ocean in the channel was extremely ruff with 20+ waves.
Japan has adopted hovercraft into it's military defense force called LCAC (Landing Craft Air Cushion). They are HUGE and carry a sh*t ton of troops, vehicles, weapons, and other equipment to engage amphibiously. They are incredible to see in action.
I grew up about an hour where the Big Musky operaterd and seen it many times while it was running. I was just down a few months ago at the bucket. You would never know that land was minded now.
Seawise Giant / Jahre Viking is not the longest ship, that title goes to Prelude FLNG at 488m long. It doesn't carry cargo or passengers though, it is a floating liquid natural gas (FLNG) processing platform. Prelude FLNG's displacement is 600,000 Tonnes.
Went to the Hovercraft museum at the weekend, am sure my wife loved it. The Princess Margaret is massive. I do hope the museum can get some lottery funding or these will be lost to history
Bucyrus is not so much defunct, it was acquired by Caterpillar and it's models rebranded.... there were two(that I know of personally), and likely more, electric mining shovels that were under assembly on site at the time CAT took over that were mostly complete and wound up getting repainted and rebranded with CAT colors and Badges. Many of the stamped parts still have BE logos.
I road to France on the giant hovercraft in '77 or '78. It was like being on an airliner and amazing! As we hit the shallows in France I looked out the window and saw people just watching us fly by.
How about "Oddball", the massive drag line crane abandoned in Yorkshire. Quick, before the mine workings under it collapse and it disappears into a massive hole.
a full year, 18,000 workers for decommissioning! That is a hard thing to include in the initial cost estimate. Building manufacturing sites, I think now have to include that kind of cost (in some places), amazing.
You can still get a Hovercraft to the Isle of Wight. They advertise them as “flights”
Exactly what I was going to say as soon as Simon said hovercraft! It is the last one though. Sadly didn’t travel on it when I last went to Wight in 2006. Got the WightLink Ferry from the neighbouring dock in Portsmouth.
There is a hovercraft museum in Gosport (across the water from Portsmouth) and that's where the hovercraft used to leave from to travel to Isle of Wight
@@jamiekay133 I think he ended up referring to the specific model rather than them in general, but as far as I know, the Isle of Wight ferry is the last hovercraft route in the world.
Aeroglisseur in France.
Southsea (on the mainland) to Ryde (on the IoW) if I remember correctly. Hovertravel is the operator. They haven't got any SRN4s any more, they phased out all of their SRN4s, SRN5s and SRN6s and haven't had any since the early 80s. Their fleet these days just consists of a pair of Griffon 12000TDs. Those two hovercraft make Hovertravel the largest hovercraft operator in the world lol.
Fun fact. I once drove a standard US pickup truck into Big Muske's bucket -- and back out, only having to make one backup move. Almost made a U-turn without backing.
The thing that most blows my mind about that tanker ship is how low the thing sits fully loaded.
It's barely afloat!
As I understand it, a lot of cargo ships today are designed to just let the big waves sweep over the deck. This fact scares me a little, for some reason :)
@@eekee6034 There are many videos from the pilot houses of these ships showing just that. They just go through the wave.
@@eekee6034 Probably why there are so many containers floating around in the sea.
I rode a hovercraft across the channel in June 2000 on a trip to Europe with my high school French club. I had no idea it was about to become a thing of the past.❤
I’ve been on the hovercraft a few times, they were bloody loud while under power
The Channel hovercraft weren't just loud, but uncomfortable in any sort of swell, since they bounced across the wave tops. I crossed to France on one once - and got a normal ferry back.
@@ThatGeezer I can see what you mean. I've only been on the Channel hovercraft once and that was when the weather wasn't that great. That was, well, exciting ... :D
I was trying to explain them to my kids, having crossed the channel in the early 70s in one and the best I could come up with it was like being on top of your washing machine while sitting on a cheap moulded plastic chairs you get in school.
Going on the smaller one to the Isle of Wight was not being able to see out the window due to all the spray.
I live 5 minutes from the hovercraft museum in Lee on the Solent where the large beasts are rotting away. One gone already and one left, Princess Anne
I've been to the hovercraft museum at Lee on Solent. Highly recommended! You get to walk around the Princess Margret, as well as being able to see a number of other hovercraft rarities, including the first hovercraft prototype.
Pretty happy to live close to this.
People are mental.. How do you put projects like this together is beyond me. Amazing engineering.
Yet another reason why engineers and designers get the big bucks
I'm surprised the oil companies did not buy them up surplus, And use them instead of an ice road across lakes, And the polar sea.
in sections
0:30 - Chapter 1 - Hovercraft
4:30 - Chapter 2 - The Tu 144
10:15 - Chapter 3 - Big muskie
14:45 - Chapter 4 - The seawise giant
Took the Hovercraft from Calais to Dover and back, several times, and it was awesome!
I will never forget the noise they made.
Simon do not just judge the hovercraft on the crossing you are forgetting it was quick to dock and faster to load, because they just glide in up a ramp and drop there own ramp and the cars just start rolling off/on, very fast indeed compared to a ferry.
No. A well designed ferry just doesn't need to glide up a ramp, but could break similarily good, while having a more secure and higher travel speed. All features, beside gliding on ice, can be done better without hovering and without further costs.
@urlauburlaub2222Wrong. The SR.N4 could travel at up to 83 knots. I travelled on it by motorcycle. These were loaded first on and first off at that time. England to France took a little over 40 minutes which included loading and unloading, they were very much faster than the equivalent cross-channel ferry services. The only disappointment was that the amount of spray they produced effectively meant there was no enjoying the view when crossing.
I grew up where the Big Muskie was operated. My dad used to build the roads it moved on. I got to go inside of it once when it was down for maintenance. I also knew a guy that was cut in half when one of the cables snapped during a cable replacement. The winch brake failed that caused a runaway of the spooling motor stretching the cable to the breaking point. The bucket would hold 3 Greyhound buses. There are pictures of them changing out the undercarriage, the number of machines needed to pull the belly pan out is staggering.
lucky
Big Muskie made the list!😊
I remember seeing it from a distance before it was disassembled.
Edit: You can go stand in the bucket at Jessie Owens State Park in Ohio, not in The Wilds Safari Park which is actually about 12 miles away but worth the short drive.
I used to see it when camping at the Strip Mines. It was amazing.
it's one of my favorites of all times :D
The TU144 and Air France Concorde shown the stands are at the Technik Museum in Sinsheim Germany, you can go up on the roof of the building and climb inside them.
The TU144 looks like it was based on the toy model of the concorde, with all the energy spent afterwards to make it flyable with the lowest possible investment. A very "agile" "sprint", and propably they point fingers at the Concorde designers, they stole some of the papers.
We used to drive by Big Muskie between my parents' house and my grandparents' house when I was a kid. I've always loved heavy equipment, so it was always a big deal to everyone in the car.
one of the best ever
I rode the hovercraft across the channel when I was in fourth grade. It was amazing
As an addition to the SR. N4. The fuel consumption was also a big contribution. With maximum power they consumed 700 imperial gallons an hour.
The Concorde comparisons really keep going with them. They were easily the largest and fastest things afloat, but the only way to make them profitable was pushing them to an upmarket niche route to offset the fuel and maintenance costs
I remembered taking a hovercraft in Singapore to one of the southern islands of Bukom. It was a pretty fun experience. It must have been stopped a couple of decades ago.
I've always said that those giant hovercraft would be perfect for any "Ice road" heavy haulage. They wont sink that's for sure
I think moving that much cold air can cause problems, icing of props, etc. I'd assume at some point there's a lower temperature threshold at which they become risky or inefficient comparatively.
Also ice is sharp.
But they will crash into that tree over there and you wont have enough control to stop it.
There are stories of these Flying over boats when crossing the channel, They do sit above the ground by quite a bit, to the point where the drivers are called Pilots, and the skirt is a flexible rubber and made of many pieces, making it harder to damage the whole skirt.....and the skirt isn't needed to the thing to fly, but it certainly makes it more efficient and controllable , not perfect but not like it's a weak or vulnerable craft.
You are right, there would become a point where the temperature will effect the craft. But these are engineering problems that wouldn't be too hard to solve.
Ultimate it'll come down to a cost/time analysis.
It's unlikely that equipment would be lost as even worse case you can retrieved it after the ice has melted.
If a route could be worked out using rivers these would be working all year around also.
I think the maintenance costs for them is WAY higher than trucks.
Excellent video!!!
0:43 -- nice Audi 200 :)
6:43 You can say that about the Concorde too. Not having nose flaps force you to make more complex delta wings.
The U.S. Navy is the largest operator of Hovercraft. They’re called Landing Craft Air Cushion or LCAC.
But not operator of the largest Hovercraft.😉
Leave it to the Navy to have the largest fleet of an aircraft even if it’s meant for water
Old enough to recall going to France on the Hovercrafts a good few times while I was a child, and man, they were bloody quick, yet smooth.
I enjoyed the trips, was all part of the joys of travel.
An incredible but lost machine, not saying it was good, but I would love to see it in a museum; the Antarctic Snow Cruiser
Calum would approve.
So…Big Muskie was less than half the price of a super yacht of today…
It boggles the mind
All the best to everyone
Average cost of a super yacht runs around 30 million which with the inflation adjustment is considerably less than what the Big Muskie cost.
6:01 that’s the information we understand
04:30 - OH YES! 👏 👏 👏 👏
Concordski! I loved that on Megaprojects. One of your VERY FIRST!
Could have also been called the "Discordski", being discordant with good sensible design and unreliable. There was also the other supersonic airliner being developed but which was abandoned. That was the Boeing 2707, AKA the SST of the USA, bigger and faster than the concord or the TU144 but which became too costly and too complex.
Haha nice, I saw your comment and thought you spelled it wrong (on purpose) but no! Concordski is a thing😂
@@Iris_and_or_George There is such a thing as convergent evolution from different lines of descent of animals or ideas but the TU144 is rather more than what would be accounted for in convergent evolution. Subsequent to the collapse of the Soviet Union documents prove the industrial spying involved.
At 11:54 there are two men in the foreground in front of Big Muskie. You have to zoom in to tell they are people.
I worked for SeaCat/Hovercraft back in the day. Most of my time was spent on WPC Fast Craft. The fast cats basically took over from the Mountbatten'. Not quite as fast at 36-38knts instead of 60knts they were considerably quieter, had greater carrying capacities and were more fuel efficient. By far their biggest advantage was their performance and stability in rougher weather. The SRN4's couldn't operate in weather force 5 or above. Even some conventional ferries won't go above force 7. The Seacat kept on trucking up to force 9 weather which is hitting storm force. Roughest I've ever been out in was aboard Seacat Scotland taking her light ship from Bel - Dover. Massive storm force 10-11 off the coast of Wales and it still felt like the ship was just having fun even while we were lashing the Cpt to the seat to stop him being thrown out it 😂
In 2005 rising fuel costs and competition from budget airlines ended SeaCat/Hoverspeed's run altogether. The old Incat 74's are with a Greek operator and being run into the ground with the previous Blue Riband holder Hoverspeed Great Britain laid up and being stripped for parts to keep her sisters the ex Seacat Scotland and Seacat France running. The Incat 81 Seacat Rapide and Diamant are with Balearia operating out of Florida.
The 20 minutes ride on the hovercraft from Dover to Calais was the most sickening thing I've done in all my life!!! Never before I got so sick - I wanted to die.
I had to literally pry my wife's hands off the arm rests, one finger at a time, she was so clenched from the experience. It was a nightmare that I'll never forget.
When you give the soviets credit for the TU-144, I thought you were going to point out tge US attempt that never got off the ground
(laughs) I just knew it - if anyone wants to compare the Concorde with the TU-144 by visiting them both within an hour, they will have to travel to Sinsheim, Germany, as this is the only place where they are on display side by side. And what is visible in the background at 6:20? The name Sinsheim on a wing.
Talking about excavators... the german lignite excavators work in a different way; they scoop the earth up with a rotating wheel that seen from the side looks like a buzzsaw, because the buckets are attached to the wheel. The wheel is attached to the end of a long arm and can be moved up and down. The arm again is attached to an engine house mounted on caterpillar tracks. On the other side there is a conveyor belt that moves the material back to a line that brings the coal to a factory, often a power plant.
These machines are often more than 200 meters in length, 50 meters wide, and 95 meters high. The whole construction weighs more than 14,000 metric tons and is powered by electricity that is provided by a cable. If you ignore the latter (which means these machines do not run on their own power), they are the largest and longest ever made. They are still in action, but as Germany wants to cease the usage of fossil energy, their days are by now numbered.
I got to operate the 5th largest drag line walking crane in the world, in the early 1960's at Stears Sand and Gravel in Northport N.Y. I was 14 years old.
The Busirus-Erie 23,000 Volt Electric Crane, something as large as a five story building with a 250+ foot long boom and a power cord, was surprisingly fast and agile, albeit slow walking. Digging was all a matter of timing. Imagine Fly Casting with a 30 yard bucket on a 250' poll using an office building. Your target was a point on a sand cliff one or two bucket lengths above the base of a sand cliff. Next load the bucket, then translate to a Conveyor / Hoper that lead to a Crushing Plant a couple of miles away. The skill came in landing the bucket in a way that did not collapse the cliff and burry the bucket.
They also taught me to operate a CAT D8, spreading top soil down 700 ft sand cliffs as part of the reclamation process of the mine. It was dangerous to say the least. You controlled speed down the slope with the blade and direction with light touches on the clutches, no brakes! Get it wrong and you flip over and get buried at the bottom of the cliff. It was interesting and fun. Stears supplied the majority of the sand used to make concrete and asphalt for NY roads from the 1930 to the 1970's.
When travelling by hovercraft from England to France in 1977 (I was 12 years old) I was most disappointed that you saw nothing out of the windows as they were just a constant spray of seawater! Pretty smooth and rapid mode of transport however compared to the ferry.
I was on a hovercraft that was let out in the worst weather, the skirt flipped up smashed windows down one side passengers were injured lost radar and had to limp back to France. It was a nightmare, imagine being in a force 7 in the middle of the Channel sitting on the top of the biggest wave and then just dropping it was so scary. We ended up travelling along the French coast for miles trying to find the port. When we got back they then stuck us on a ferry to do it all over again. I flew a lot more after this😅
Man those hovercraft are HUGE!!! Ive been on a hydrofoil boat in Sydney. I dont think they have those anymore either.
There was a documentary on Big Muskie a number of years ago that featured a video of it walking, and there was a commercial dumpster sitting on top of its foot. The foot also had a ladder up the side, but it reminded me of the opening of "Red Dwarf" on the BBC.
I went on the hovercraft from Dover to Calais and back. It made some bloody racket
Not a good trip to have a migraine on huh?
I wish you guys would have talked about what happened to the strip mine where Big Musky was. It was turned into a sort of safari park called The Wilds. It is a really wonderful place.
I loved the Hover trips from the Isle of white 2023 and using the Old style London tube carriages
The SR N4 (not 94 as you kept saying) was really put to death over her engines, as you said she had four Bristol Sidley marine Proteus engines directly developed from the aviation version designed to power the very short lived Bristol Britannia, unfortunately when it was clear that large turboprop engines where completely obsolete they simply stopped making them and soon after stopped making parts for them. To re engine the SR N4 proved to be impossible as no similar engine existed.
Used to love taking the hovercraft between Dover and Calais.
I took a hovercraft to France when I was a kid. it was fast but bouncy. Ferry was way more relaxing!
another one: AN-225 Mrija, one of the first victims of Russian attack on Ukraine...
plane lover in me still grieves
Now that was an amazing plane! Hopefully one day another will be built!
Seaspeed Hovercraft didn't even have a bar or a loo for the short trip from Dover to Boulogne. Off we went in 83 decked in our cub scout duds.
No bar, ok, but no provisions for ... ? That's confidence.
The Canadian Coast Guard maintains two hovercraft, the CCGS Mamilossa and CCGS Sipu Muin, as part of its fleet. They are used very effectively for ice-breaking. They can go up rivers and break up ice during the spring melt, thus preventing dangerous floods. They are very effective for this niche function.
I remember building an Airfix kit of the massive hovercraft when I was a wee small boy. I wish I'd got to go on it!
You know 11:53 you can see people on the ground near Big Muskie that really provides some context to the size of it
The actual thing is, that Big Muskie was not really about it's size but the bucket's size. The German Baggers were not only bigger, but also more efficient and more variable, but had external power sources, what reduces their weight. The Muskie was about the "independence" from everything but the oil powering it, what all added up to it's heavyness, without actually being the most heaviest even though massive amounts of oil in it. So, it was about having the biggest, independant "hand" shoveling up earth in one tug.
@sideprojects - the Antonov An-225 Mriya definitely deserved an honerable mention
I was on a Navy patrol ship in Hong Kong, on our way up to Japan for a visit, and we passed the Seawise Giant. Coming through the haze it looked like an island! In fact, the officer of the watch did check to make sure that it wasn't as we were a few hundred miles from any coast. She was empty and on her way to the Gulf but man, I have never seen anything that size floating before or since.
I used to commute to the mainland every day from the Isle of Wight and would get the Hovercraft, and it is still running now. My father in law used to work at BHC (British Hovercraft Corporation now Westlands)
You failed to mention Silver City Airways, who using the Bristol 170 Freighter flew cars from the early '50's from back and forth from Lydd in Kent to Le Touquet, France.
I picked up on that as well. But I think we can assume he meant 'affordable' mass market transport in the same way conventional ferries were. Silver city could manage 1 or 2 cars at very high cost per trip.
I've made the journey on the cross-channel hovercraft, in 1973, in a VW campervan which had set out overland from Pakistan to the west coast of Ireland (and back!). Even though I was a child back then I still remember the crossing from France to Dover to this day.
Hovercraft museum is an excellent place to visit - unique!
I went on one a couple of times in the 80's and the speed was mental... as was the seasickness in anything other than a flat calm :)
You can still enjoy the hovercraft from Portsmoth to the IOW.
..wait why is Dara Ó Briain on the side of that bus at 11:49
I understood that reference!
Nah, it’s Gru from despicable me
I remember taking the hovercraft to Calais. The windows were pointless. Once the engines started then the windows were covered in water spray. The noise was beyond belief.
I use to have a couple of photos that I took to do with the size of a dragline ( not this one ). The 1st was from the public road showing a dragline with what look like tiny little cranes with it. the other photo was of one of those cranes closer, they were the biggest road transportable with only a little on-site construction ( The crane would drive to site with only 1 other semi trailer of bits to bolt on to use it ) it was huge.
I have also been on one when it went for a walk, not fast but something that big going that fast...
I actually remember HoverSpeed in the 80's. I never rode on it but my dad was working in west Africa and he would do some weird thing where he would go from Paris across the channel and fly to the states out of London. He had pictures of these boats.
Some of them look like Hurricane Hunters, we did a video about those
Been on it great experience
The TU144 lioks like a bee with those things (another technical term) at the front 😂
The trouble with the Big hovercraft was the Fuel they used massive amounts of even at the time expensive fuel ...later experts said they could have been converted to run on a less expensive fuel but by then it was to late ..
Should've mentioned the AN225
But they say they're going to rebuild that one.
I was on the motor ferry in 1985. It was announced about the accident with the hover craft. We were told that when the ferry was entering the sea wall, a 16 feet wave hit the hovercraft and pushed it into the sea wall. The ocean in the channel was extremely ruff with 20+ waves.
You got your beard trimmed! Looks good.
Aaaahhhhoooyyyy TO THE GREEAT SIMON WHISTLAAA!!
Illustrious platform. My Dude!!!
I took a trip on one of those hovercraft across the channel in 1980.
I've never been so seasick in my life.
Japan has adopted hovercraft into it's military defense force called LCAC (Landing Craft Air Cushion). They are HUGE and carry a sh*t ton of troops, vehicles, weapons, and other equipment to engage amphibiously. They are incredible to see in action.
Am I blessed? Well, I was on an SR-N4 "Mountbatten" once as a young boy, with my dad and his car. So, yes...
I live close to pegwell and remember the hovercraft there, went exploring the site once it shut when I was a kid, and got removed by angry security
Check out the P&H 4800 XPC shovel. She's up there with big musky
My wife and I rode one of the “Hovercraft” across the English Channel in the early 90’s on a trip to Europe. Fun…but LOUD!
I grew up about an hour where the Big Musky operaterd and seen it many times while it was running. I was just down a few months ago at the bucket. You would never know that land was minded now.
Seawise Giant / Jahre Viking is not the longest ship, that title goes to Prelude FLNG at 488m long. It doesn't carry cargo or passengers though, it is a floating liquid natural gas (FLNG) processing platform. Prelude FLNG's displacement is 600,000 Tonnes.
A fire department in my town still has a hovercraft. Isnt used often as its usually broken but its still there.
The hovercraft is no longer a thing? Damn, I always wanted to go on it.
Tu144 did look like a sad puppy when its canards were deployed, specially with the droop snoot 😂
Travelled on the srn4 many times in the 70s always an event
Next time do the BOS 300,the biggest floating crane in the world. Currently grounded on the reef off South Africa.
Concorde and the TU144 both crashed in France a few miles from each other, but took off from different airports. Very sad 🙁
Nice to see you snug Sting in there....
YEEEEESSSSS LEARNINGZ 🤪
Thanks Mr. Whistler and all.
The Tu-144 was later used by the Soviet space program to train pilots of the Buran spacecraft, and by NASA for supersonic research until 1999
Went to the Hovercraft museum at the weekend, am sure my wife loved it. The Princess Margaret is massive. I do hope the museum can get some lottery funding or these will be lost to history
You could fit two Dara O'Briains in Big Muskie's bucket! (Megabus joke)
I took the hovercraft across the channel in the 80s, and the rough crossing had people barfing all around me. It was horrible.
12 times the displacement is not 12 times the size but nice job Simons writer. Good video
I apreciate simon using american units to describe big muskie 11:25
I think I've nearly caught up on all of your videos
Bucyrus is not so much defunct, it was acquired by Caterpillar and it's models rebranded.... there were two(that I know of personally), and likely more, electric mining shovels that were under assembly on site at the time CAT took over that were mostly complete and wound up getting repainted and rebranded with CAT colors and Badges. Many of the stamped parts still have BE logos.
I road to France on the giant hovercraft in '77 or '78. It was like being on an airliner and amazing! As we hit the shallows in France I looked out the window and saw people just watching us fly by.
*rode also
How about "Oddball", the massive drag line crane abandoned in Yorkshire. Quick, before the mine workings under it collapse and it disappears into a massive hole.
11:03 that's not big muskie; I believe that is a crawler cable shovel called "The Captain"
a full year, 18,000 workers for decommissioning! That is a hard thing to include in the initial cost estimate. Building manufacturing sites, I think now have to include that kind of cost (in some places), amazing.
Strictly speaking, the Tu144 can’t be considered an aeroplane in the truest sense, in that it didn’t do a very good job of flying.