HoverWorld Expo 2004

Chris Fitzgerald
Chairman, HoverWorld Expo 2004

HoverWorld Expo 2004

Australian Naval Architect Magazine
Spring 2004

On 14 March 1964, more than 30,000 spectators gathered on the shores of then partially filled Lake Burley Griffin to watch an event unprecedented in history: the World's First Hovercraft Race. In April 1964, Flight International (London) devoted a special supplement to air cushion vehicles, in which it wrote of the event:

14 March 1964 may become a famous date in ACV (Air-Cushion Vehicle) history, for on that day, in Canberra, the world's first competitive hovercraft trials took place. An analogy may be drawn between the Canberra trials of 1964 and the Rheims air meeting of 1909: both mark the beginning of competitive development in their respective fields, with relatively primitive machines conceived by enthusiastic experimenters.

An upcoming event may well become an even more important date in ACV history. In celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the 1964 event, the world's fastest hovercraft will converge in Canberra 28 December 2004 through 3 January 2005 for HoverWorld Expo 2004. The event will take place Lake Burley Griffin's Black Mountain Peninsula, near the site of the original race, and at various venues throughout Canberra and Australia.

The 1964 event was staged by the Canberra Branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society, who has given their full support to HoverWorld Expo 2004. The event is also sanctioned and supported by the National Capital Authority, Australian Capital Tourism, and the Australian Hovercraft Federation.

This all-inclusive event is an expansion of World Hovercraft Week 2002 in the US, in which 18 nations participated. HoverWorld Expo 2004 will encompass the following; the full schedule of events may be found on the official web site at www.HoverWorldExpo.com:

• The first World Championship Hovercraft Endurance Race
• Historic Pioneers' Race among the original 1964 competitors
• Model and human-powered hovercraft races
• The Hovercraft World Speed Record Challenge
• 28th International Symposium on Air Cushion Technology
• 2nd World Symposium on Hovercraft Rescue
• "Tech Talks" throughout the week by the world's foremost hovercraft experts
• The launch of DiscoverHover, an international school hovercraft program
• Museum exhibits

The first World Championship Hovercraft Endurance Race

During the last 40 years, hovercraft racing has become an established sport. HoverWorld Expo 2004, however, will debut an entirely new form of racing: hovercraft endurance racing. Ordinary hovercraft races are generally short. The HoverWorld Expo endurance race, however, will be a daylong, 100-lap continuous race over land and water, with pit stops. The introduction of endurance racing is specifically designed to advance hovercraft technology, since this form of racing requires improvements in craft durability and reliability.

Another feature unique to hovercraft endurance racing is that it opens the field to a wider variety of competitors. The starting lineup is determined by handicapping: Based on each craft's best time in the time trials, the slowest hovercraft will start first and the fastest will start last. This will expand the field of entries to welcome everyone and every type of hovercraft, since a racing model is not required. Novices, world champions, students, women and celebrities will compete together in a race where everyone has an equal chance to win.

Historic Pioneers' Race

An Australia-wide search is underway to find the crews of the eleven hovercraft that competed in the 1964 race and invite them to compete again at HoverWorld Expo 2004 in an honorary Pioneers' Race. As of this writing, seven of the original 18 participants have been located.

HoverWorld Expo is actually being organized by one of those pioneers. Chris Fitzgerald, formerly of Melbourne and a participant in the 1964 race, is founder of the World Hovercraft Organization, under whose auspices the event is being staged. Fitzgerald is also President of Neoteric Hovercraft, Inc., the world's original manufacturer of light hovercraft for the recreational, rescue and commercial market. Neoteric is based in Terre Haute, Indiana USA.

Model and human-powered hovercraft races

Radio-controlled model hovercraft have become quite a popular hobby amongst both children and adults. HoverWorld Expo will provide an opportunity for these hobbyists from around the world to pit their craft against each other in model hovercraft races.

HoverWorld Expo will present the world's first human-powered hovercraft race, as well. These unique vehicles, sporting propellers but pedaled like a bicycle, are a challenge to construct since they must be extraordinarily light in weight, less than 50 kilograms, in order to be operable.

World Speed Record Challenge

The fastest hovercraft in the world will push their vehicles to the limit at the HoverWorld Expo World Speed Record Challenge. Neoteric Hovercraft, Inc. has offered a handsome prize for the top speed - $10,000US – providing the current world speed record is exceeded by 10 mph. The current record is 137.376 km/h, achieved in Portugal in 1995 by Bob Windt, an American. The top speed at the World's First Hovercraft Race was less than 48 km/h.

28th International Symposium on Air Cushion Technology

For more than thirty years The Canadian Air Cushion Technology Society (CACTS) has held periodic symposia on air cushion technology, in collaboration with other societies devoted to air cushion vehicles/hovercraft. CACTS is a constituent society of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute.

For the first time, this year's Symposium will occur in conjunction with HoverWorld Expo 2004, which will allow even greater participation in both events. The Symposium will take place at the Australian National University, december 29-30, 2004.

Papers are now being accepted for presentation at the Symposium. Papers on all aspects of air cushion technology may be submitted. Since the Symposium will occur concurrently with HoverWorld Expo 2004, papers addressing both sport and racing hovercraft designs are particularly encouraged. The Symposium registration fee will be reduced by half for one author per accepted paper, and selected papers will be reviewed for publication in the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Journal.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 28 June 2004. Further details can be obtained from the HoverWorld Expo web site www.HoverWorldExpo.com or from Professor Lawrence Doctors, Chairman of the Symposium, on (02) 9385 4098 or email L.Doctors@UNSW.edu.au.

2nd World Symposium on Hovercraft Rescue

Hovercraft are used widely in search and rescue operations, due to their unique ability to not only master terrain that other rescue vehicles cannot, but to also keep rescue personnel above the danger, not in it. The World Symposium on Hovercraft Rescue will bring together personnel from fire departments, law enforcement and other rescue agencies in an effort to continuously improve hovercraft rescue standard operating procedures.

"Tech Talks"

Informal onsite "Tech Talks" will take place throughout the week of HoverWorld Expo 2004. A wide variety of topics will be presented by world experts in hovercraft and air cushion vehicles, from hovercraft to design to choosing the right engine to "how to" demonstrations on using various materials in the construction of hovercraft.

DiscoverHover: the Build-a-Hovercraft international school program

HoverWorld Expo 2004 will mark the inaugural racing event of the World Hovercraft Organization's international school hovercraft program, DiscoverHover. With the world's foremost hovercraft experts serving as an advisory board, DiscoverHover provides free hovercraft plans, instructions and educational materials to schools and youth organizations throughout the world, enabling students to build a racing hovercraft and compete in local, national and international hovercraft races.

DiscoverHover will pay the shipping costs for qualifying student hovercraft, giving them the opportunity to travel to Canberra and compete in the first World Championship Hovercraft Endurance Race at HoverWorld Expo 2004.

Further details about the DiscoverHover program appear on the web site www.DiscoverHover.org.

Museum Exhibits

The HoverWorld Expo 2004 "Pace Craft" that will start the World Championship Endurance will arrive in Australia via shipping container in March; it will be exhibited at various venues throughout Australia until December.

In addition, museum exhibits are being planned for both the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney and the National Science and Technology Centre in Canberra. The exhibits will include hovercraft history materials from the British Hovercraft Museum, as well as a one-passenger HoverChair that gives children a chance to pilot a hovercraft on their own.

In summary, HoverWorld Expo 2004 is a unique opportunity for all to celebrate Australia's most notable claim to air cushion vehicle fame, and to witness history being made once again in Canberra.

Flashback: The World's First Hovercraft Race

Before moving forward into the future of air cushion vehicles in Canberra this year, we invite you to step back 40 years in history to experience the World's First Hovercraft Race.

The World's First Hovercraft Race was, in fact, known in 1964 as "The World's First Ground Effect Machine Race." Sir Christopher Cockerell, the inventor of the hovercraft, copyrighted the term "hovercraft" as a commercial name in 1955 so it was not available for public use. Later, Cockerell generously handed the name over to public domain.

Chris Fitzgerald, Chairman of HoverWorld Expo 2004, was the youngest competitor in the 1964 race. In a recent issue of HoverWorld Insider, the official newsletter of the World Hovercraft Organization, he editorialized some of his recollections:

"After nearly forty years I can still vividly recall the enthusiasm surrounding the world's first hovercraft race in Canberra. We original participants were filled with a spirit of self-reliance, an intrigue with newness, a frontier mentality, a naiveté of technological difficulties, a dream to experience the sensation of hovering, and a possibility for fame and fortune. Despite hovercraft that wouldn't start, only five that managed to stagger across the finish line, and fame and fortune that is yet to arrive, we were undaunted by difficulties and remain so today.

"That undaunted spirit, widely evident among those in the world of air cushion vehicles, is the strength behind the evolution of the hovercraft. We've come a long way since those early hovercraft days. Hovercraft racing is now an established sport, and the vehicle that was once an obscure, peculiar hobby is now used in most major nations of the world for a diversity of important purposes. Hovercraft save lives, transport tanks and troops, ferry passengers, enforce laws, control wildlife, assist in agriculture, entertain the public and are enjoyed by private enthusiasts across the globe."

Eric Shackle, an Australian journalist who covered the 1964 event, recalls in HoverWorld Insider:

"Ten mostly backyard-built mechanical hares and tortoises competed in the World's first Hovercraft Race in Australia's capital, Canberra, on 14 March 1964. One of the amphibious hares sank, three had to be towed ashore, and a tortoise was first of only five to cross the finish line. The 10th failed to start.

"The race took place on a cold, windy Sunday morning, on the city's new man-made scenic Lake Burley Griffin, then only part-filled. The event, one of several celebrations marking the 51st anniversary of the naming of Canberra was organized by the Canberra Branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

"I was there as the Sydney-based public relations officer for the sponsor, BP, which supplied fuel and lubricants for a wide variety of motors, ranging from tiny Victa lawnmower engines to one salvaged from a Catalina flying boat. I clearly recall the ear-splitting noise of the motors as they were warming up onshore, and the clouds of sand and dust raised by the downward blasts of air from the machines.

"The fastest craft was built by two friends, Arthur Powell and Roy Raymond, both living in the Canberra suburb of Ainslie. Powell … built the frame from 1/16-inch aircraft plywood covered with several coats of varnish.

"Raymond recalls, 'Two motors were needed, one to give it lift and the other for forward drive. The vector motor came from an old World War Catalina flying boat. It was a V-twin generator motor which had been used to keep batteries charged when the Cat was moored in water. The other engine was a two-cylinder Sunbeam motor which had been used in motorbikes. On the demonstration run … disaster struck on the way back to the shore. When I stopped in front of the crowd, the vector drive shaft broke, so I failed to cross the finish line, and we were disqualified, after achieving the fastest time over the main course.'

"Raymond, now 85 years old, is Australia's oldest licensed pilot. His lifelong friend John Coggan says, 'Roy has built boats, gliders, and powered aircraft. He flies his own plane, a J1 Taylor Cub which he totally rebuilt himself. With his son Barry, he flew around Australia in it a few years ago.'

"Coggan recalls, 'They were good days when all this happened. We were flying Tiger Moths and building our own sailing boats and life was good.'

"Hovercraft have come a long way since those days. They are used around the world to perform a variety of tasks. Traveling on a cushion of air, they can traverse any kind of surface – dry land, swamps, water, snow or ice. Large hovercraft have carried millions of passengers in many countries. Armed military hovercraft provided speedy river patrols in Vietnam. Tank and troop carrying hovercraft carried out beach landing missions in the Gulf War. Smaller craft are widely used for recreation, racing and rescue."

Further Reading

Further information about HoverWorld Expo 2004 and about hovercraft in general may be found at www.neoterichovercraft.com and www.worldhovercraft.org. You may also subscribe to HoverWorld Insider, the World Hovercraft Organization's free email newsletter covering hovercraft information, news and events at http://www.worldhovercraft.org/insider/index.htm.