On a cushion of air

Description

This is the story of how private foreign enterprise in the form of Swedish Lloyd and Swedish America Line, who formed a British company called Hoverlloyd, galvanised the British Government in to supporting this new concept in hovercraft transport through the formation of a British Rail subsidiary called Seaspeed. It is a story, told by those who were there, of how young adventurous men and women, most of whom were in their twenties and early thirties, took on the exciting challenge of getting an operation, in which they all believed had a great future, off the ground. It tells of the difficulties and near disasters, through lack of experience, that nearly wrote off the industry in the early days; the clashes of cultures between the free enterprise and Government operations; and why, after so much early promise, the great adventure with the giant car and passenger carrying hovercraft came to an end.

The story begins with the history of the seaplane manufacturer Saunders-Roe and their involvement as a result of the discovery by Christopher Cockerell in 1953 that heavy weights could be supported on a cushion of low pressure air and that the concept could be practically applied. This definitive account of the history of the hovercraft provides a comprehensive narrative of the hovercraft industry and the giant SR.N4.