SRN4 Hovercraft in Action. Part 4: Overnight Maintenance.
Вставка
- Опубліковано 19 сер 2017
- Each of the two craft in service received deep maintenance every other night, which included the engines, auxiliary power units and especially the skirt. The whole affair required the craft to be raised about four meters from the ground by means of hydraulic jacks. It was a precise, heavy and intense business, but it was one the Hoverspeed team seemed to have mastered as though it was nothing more than changing a tyre on a car. Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed it. Thank you.
- Наука та технологія
I was employed as a Radiologist for British Hovercraft Corporation from 1972 to 1980 and used to carry out x Ray checks on the 4 pylons of each craft. Two craft at Seaspeed, Dover and three craft at Hoverlloyd, Pegwell Bay. This was invariably carried out in the winter when the craft were less busy, so I have "fond" memories of freezing nights on the slippery ribbed top of the craft. They were wonderful craft and mega impressive when viewed on the hover, close up.
amazing. must quite some fond memories. checking for cracks in the plyon structure?
Another great British invention like the Concorde ahead of its time !! Resigned to the history book !!! Glad I had the privilege to go on the princess Anne and princess Margaret back in the 80s Dover to Calais route !!! Used to hear them while I was at school in Dover every day never again icon of the sea !!!
Makes u wonder why all great ideas that don't come from the USA all seem to fall by the easteside.
Travelled on them a lot. You could hear them all over Dover. St Edmund's to the grammar schools. But these vehicles were far from comfortable for much of the year...
I worked out I've been on this twice - once in the early 80s for a school and once just before it closed. Bumpy but bloody fast.
The SRN4 was an absolute monster.
The US Marines still run huge assault hovercraft and the Royal Marines have a few so it's not a dead technology.
Awesome even by today's standards WOW!!!
Very impressive and jazzy, but a terrible idea from start to finish. Fuel consumption must have been outrageous, as is the case with every heavy mechanical object that must lift itself (and its mammoth payload) vertically, and keep doing so all through the "flight" time, not to count those four monstrous (and presumably very thirsty) Marine Proteus engines up their pylons. Noise was deafening, of course outside but also (so I was told by a frequent traveller in those contraptions) inside the ship. Vibration was terrible, conversations could hardly be held, and no-one but the pilots could see anything thanks to the thick spray washing the windows. And then comes what for me must have been the most huge nightmare of all: maintenance. Just look at that scandalous spray of corrosive sea water getting all over the place all of the time. Look at that enormous surface of rubber, a material which loses fast its plasticity and becomes rigid and brittle in the constant exposure to the deadly mix of sea water and sunshine impinging onto a bumper black expanse of soft material. After WWII, Britain got trapped in a self-defeating trend of extraordinary and expensive technological bravado, oblivious of anything having remotely to do with practicality. Despite the "bean counter" and "shop keeper" fame bestowed on the English, I think the opposite was the case: they were technological romantics who squandered their talent in beautiful, expensive, useless trash!
@@javiergilvidal1558 RESPECT YOUR OPINION, STILL FOR ITS TIME IT WAS A UNPRECEDENTED MACHINE, WITH PRINCIPLES THAT THE MILITARY STILL USES TODAY, ALL AROUND THE GLOBE, WITH A LOTS OF ECOLOGICAL IMPROVEMENTS, NEVER THE LESS.
What i want to know is, where does a redundant hovercraft pilot go for work? Not as it theres millions of hovercraft about, also the staff. Feel very sorry for them all and the loyalty they had to a company who sold them out, like the company I used to work for really :(((
Love the sign in the window
"THIRTY SOMETHING HOVERCRAFT COMPANY WLTM ATTRACTIVE BILLIONAIRE FOR FUN WEEKENDS AND LONG TERM RELATIONSHIP, GSOH REQUIRED!"
Someone still has a sense of humour even with the end looming.
Aren't they technically Mariners? so I'd assume they'd go that route. But I don't know, I too felt that was a very niche profession.
Fantastic that you captured this footage! 10:51 Shows really what sadly did for the Hovercraft from what I've read: Skirt costs. Nearly all of Sir Alexander Cockerills theory held out, and indeed the increase from MK1 to MK3 with only a marginal HP increase but a larger cargo capacity proved his theory. Sadly the wear on the skirt and it's fingers in the harsh sea environment required regular replacements and that hit the bottom line as much as the fuel bill.
Hopefully one day the materials will match the theory, and who knows!
I spent the best part of 36 hours straight at Dover toward the end of hovercraft operations in 2000. As I had a number of tapes and charged batteries I thought I ought to record as much as I could. Remember, there was no idea about anything like UA-cam in those days, it was recorded purely for my own interest. Christopher Cockerell's original design involved no material skirt at all; the cushion was contained within a ring of high-pressure air. However, this meant that the possible hover height was unviably low. The skirt was invented by aircraft engineer C.H. Latimer-Needham and while there were undoubted problems with it, he turned Cockerell's completely unuseable (my view) invention into something at least partly viable. I can't remember what the Hoverspeed engineers told me the life expectancy of a skirt was but every night they were chopping away huge amounts of it and replacing it with new. It was all riveted together. In a building on the other side of the road from the terminal there was what looked like a bizarre basket ball court, except the markings on the floor were the templates for the various pieces of skirt, on which the raw material was cut out. Propellor costs were also a factor at the end. These were 21ft Dowty propellors that would have cost a fortune to replace as they were completely non-standard. In order to eke things out, Hoverspeed cancelled at least one lunchtime service a day purely to preserve propellor hours. We will never see the like again. Thanks so much for your interest.
Living near Dover, my family travelled a lot during the early 80s on Hoverspeed as we owned a property near Bordeaux which we would regularly visit. Yes, the Hovercraft was great during the summer as it was a quick and efficient form of transport (although more expensive by car than the ferries) but from late Sept to mid June, the weather across the channel was (and still is) particularly deceptive. In gale force conditions, travelling took at least 90 mins (so no outright benefit over the ferries), the noise, the smell of kerosene (every time I travel by plane, it always reminds me of the Hovercraft, funny how some impressions last) and people seriously sick in the cabin. Stains on the floor testament to previous crossings. Strapped with a belt to your 1970s orange colour seat, unable to move. Unlike car ferries, you could not go out of the cabin and breathe a bowl of fresh air. Relentlessly, the craft would climb the crest of a wave and then crash in the trough with a loud bang shaking the entire vehicle. The black skirt would lift up and all you could see out of the window is the black rubber and sea water and sand adding to the claustrophobia. With people screaming waving their arms in the air. Those at the front worse than the rest but there was no place to hide. A roller-coaster ride one had to endure. A sardine can experience. Unbelievable cabin staff were able to put up with this. People have no idea when they look back with nostalgia.....
It seems to me that the advantage of hovercraft exists in only a very narrow range of opportunities. The original development and deployment of hovercraft was a very political thing and perhaps not ideal, hence their use now being confined to a highly contested short-sea crossing in relatively sheltered waters for which they are well-suited. Beyond that, they have very little civilian use. However, I cannot tell you how much fun I had filming this stuff 21 years ago. Rolls-Royce gas turbines, 21-foot diameter Dowty propellors and crew who, far from being morose about the impending end, welcomed anyone who took an interest. It's because of them that my modest collection of hovercraft films exists.
I think the account of Truthseeker1515 is a very realistic insight of what hovercraft travel could be like in unfavourable conditions. Having been a naval (also bridge-)officer and private pilot, I can relate a lot to different kinds of what turbulence and seastate can do to you body. And believe me, I was able to take a lot of punishment from the sea in my younger days. Three was however, one crossing with my future wife in April 1991 from Dover to Calais that I shall never forget. It took about 90 minutes, and she only wanted to get off the craft once the SRN4 had reached the landing ground at Calais. It was then that I also understood why the cars had to be tied down so rigorously. In comparison, all the crossings I had done since 1976, mostly with Hoverlloyd, had been uneventful and smooth. But in this way, my list ride had been the most memorable one.
And, by the way, this film is truely impressive.
This is a fictional account the skirt isn't able to do that
@@BiodieselRocket Not fictional, all I could see is black outside the window and water spray...
Wow, ever thought of writing a screenplay for a film? Or perhaps a novel? I guess some people don’t fare that well at sea, it’s simple as that. Personally I never found it an issue.
Someone somewhere is still using that.... tractor
I am truly GUTTED that i was never wise enough to travel on one of these even once 😪 WHY do we not have a modern day version? Way cheaper AND FASTER than grotty ‘froggy tunnel’ trains and ferries. 🤷🏻♂️
You're right in that it was fast. Nothing before or since was faster. Unfortunately, it wasn't that cheap - they burnt around a tonne of kerosene per crossing. However, it was a fantastic way to cross the channel.
Too expensive to run- the Channel Tunnel killed off Hovercraft, Fast Catamarans and flights to Paris. The ferries survive because they are cheaper for freight.
Brexiteer. Definitely.