Hovercraft Search and Rescue Damage Assessment How to use a hovercraft 7

I walked over to my hover and fired it up let it warm up for a minute while I unhooked the front tie down strap and removed the security chains, I swung the hovertrailer 90 degrees to the side and put on my life jacket. When I got into the hover and throttled it up and let it hover off the trailer onto the road and then over the curb and onto the grass even the guys in the water pushing the boats were looking to see what was going on. I maneuvered my Hovertechnics 700 over to the area that I decided would be the best to launch from and set it down turned off the key and waited for my instructions. My son Paul was taking pictures and one of the firemen commented, “Why the heck don’t we have one of those?” after a few minutes one of the firemen, I presume he was a Lieutenant walked over to me and introduced himself he said I want you to take me around the area to do damage assessment. I gave him a few instructions about where to sit, got into the hover and off we went. It was sad to see the damage that flood water had done to peoples homes and the disruption it caused in their lives. 

My passenger would point and I would fly him where he pointed. It didn’t matter where he wanted to go I could easily take him there. It was obvious he had never had the ability to do such up close examination of a flood area before and we were able to assist with the effort in a small way. I had really hoped this would prove to the department the value of a hovercraft and I think they now understand that to have a hover could create a safer environment for their rescue crews. Which would you rather do walk through that flooded area or fly through it. I believe it is our responsibility to support our firemen and their efforts to assist people in difficulties such as this flood. To do that we forming a network of volunteer hover pilots. Part of our strategy is to align hovercraft owners with fire departments for volunteer of services. If you own a hover and would like to volunteer your services and would like to know if you meet the requirements please contact us, we would like to help you get aligned with a department in your area.  Even if you don't own a hover you can become a part of this effort please contact me  terry@tlswindsled.com 

Thanks and remember, “Where everyone else has to stop we’re just getting started” Hover up

Hovercraft Search and Rescue Damage Assessment How to use a hovercraft 6

It was August and in Illinois that typically means hot and dry, this year was no exception until one particular morning. The morning started out like any other with the exception of the 5 inches of rain in about a two-hour period. My son was watching the news and they were telling of flooding in Rockford IL and that people with boats were showing up to volunteer to rescue of stranded home owners so he thought it would be a great opportunity to show off our hovers. We decided to take the Hovertour 700 over I quickly took the side panels off it and headed to Rockford. We got to the affected area and were allowed to pass through the barricades and proceed to the command post. By the time we got there everything had settled down and we were put on standby.  I watched as these brave firemen were walking along beside and behind boats basically pushing the boats into position to load people off their front porches into the boats. They had to push the boats because they were not sure what might be under the water and were concerned about damaging props, running aground, and boat bottoms on hidden debris. As I watched this scene unfold I thought about how dangerous it was to walk and secondly how foolish it was to use boats in such a situation as this. One step by a fireman and he could be sucked into a hidden hole or drain, or he might step on something in this filthy water and be injured, at any rate the entire situation was so uncalled for if they were to just use my hover. Off to the side of the command post unloading area was a high power relay station that was getting dangerously close to being submerged and they were working to shut the power off to it. I couldn’t believe the willingness of the firefighters to enter this situation with this going on, but there they were right in the mix helping people who were in trouble. It was amazing to watch. After about 30 minutes I was asked to unload the hover. I was directed to an area that they had been launching the boats into it had a rather deep drop into the water. They decided this was the best place to launch boats to protect the bottoms and the props while entering the flood zone. I was told to back my hover trailer down into the unknown ramp to launch. As I have said before I hate backing down into the water with my Hovertrailer. So I looked at him and said, “Do you mind if I launch over there?” pointing to the road where I had the hover parked. The Chief looked at me rather puzzled and said “sure?” You could tell he had no idea what a hovercraft is capable of. Unloading on the grass not in the water he was baffled.  

How to use a hovercraft 5 Sporting Event Promotions

Once we were invited to bring our hovers to a sporting event, our local semi pro baseball team asked us to bring our hovers out to the ball diamond to first promote our business and second add novelty to their show for the night. We had a great time and our hosts were excellent. They have a mascot who had a good time showing off with our hover. As we began talks with the management team of the ball team we asked them if they would like to have us fly around their field they were a bit hesitant at first then I suggested we do a small demonstration for them prior to our show night. The real problem they thought the hover would tear up the ball field. I have to share this story because it was one of the special moments when something rather fun happened. I got to the ball diamond on the date they requested the demonstration. The top grounds keeper was there and to say he was very negative about the entire idea would be an understatement. I kept assuring him it would be all right but that was not something he was going to believe. I unloaded the hover in the parking lot about 200 feet from the entrance to the ball field and flew down the drive to the entrance. That in and of itself was rather interesting because only wheeled vehicles had been down that path and here I was in the hover thing driving it like a car. He stopped me at the entrance and cautioned me that if I damaged his field I would be liable. Sometimes I have a little mean streak in me so I made a few comments about divots and fired up the hover so I couldn’t hear him I looked back at him as I began to hover out onto the outfield and he was muttering something about his sod and he had a very sick look on his face as the hover hit the turf. I flew a few feet along the edge of the outfield then turned back toward him and went into a 360-degree turn and then flew back toward him. He had this puzzled look on his face examined the turf and then smiled as I shut the hover off. He said “Can you maybe fly over that area over there?” one of the unique features of our hovercrafts is the segmented skirt versus a bag skirt. The segmented skirt has multiple edges or fingers reaching down that gently drag the surface as you fly, these edges allow the hover to rake the surface, as you are moving over it. The hover also blows air down which causes any debris under the craft to be loosened up and with the outward flow of air in combination with the fingers raking the surface you remove all the debris and what is left is some very nice grass. He instantly saw the improvement in his ball field grass and wanted to see more. So I flew all over the field after that he then started directing me to areas where the grass was really a bit on the nasty side and he explained that he couldn’t get grass to grow in that spot very well. I obliged him and by the time we were done he was not only ready to let me fly but very close to hiring me to fly the field on a regular basis. I realized then and there the potential for using the hovercraft or at least our style hovercraft for lawn care. 

Rockford River Hawks Mascot above

At Road Ranger Stadium Home of the Rockford River Hawks it's a beautiful ball field, fun, and inexpensive to attend a ball game here Rockford River Hawks Loves Park IL

How to use a hovercraft 4 Party

We had an option on our web site for a while that suggested using the hovercraft for parties and events. From that we have flown people at various events such as car shows, motorcycle gatherings, birthday parties, church group events, and county fairs. The potential for this is unending. The income is substantial however the cost and control of the environment around the event can be a little difficult and has to be researched prior to accepting the offer to fly your hover. One of the largest costs for such a business is the insurance; it is not that difficult to secure insurance for such a business you just have to be a little creative in your search. If all else fails you can turn to a company such as a high-risk insurer Lloyds of London for example.  

 TLS WindSled at a motorcycle event.

The hosts were kind enough to fence off an entire area for us to not only show the hovers but also fly them it was a blast.

 

How to use a hovercraft 3 grass drying 101

This pond was even larger than the last and I thought to myself if I get all the water out of this would we find fish at the bottom? Not to worry there was no way we were going to get this water to dry up it was probably two feet deep and covered about an acre of his property but I tackled it anyway, its not like I was working or anything flying a hovercraft around a wide open smooth fairly short cut grass field and over a few ponds was what most of us hope for when we hover so this was like an outing for me. In fact I wished I could just fly all over the place on this nice warm summer day. It was rather funny now that I think about it because when we started Tim didn’t really want me on the sod but now he was directing me all over the place. We did as he asked and flew where he wanted, after attempting to dry up his ponds (puddles) he directed me to a spot that had some dead grass and open spots on it. I was rather puzzled so I stopped and asked what he would like me to do at that spot. He explained that the soil was depleted of oxygen and he thought perhaps the down flow of air from the hover might inject air into the soil so I basically sat on the spot with the hover and let it hover for about five minutes. It would have been neat to have grass instantly appear but that would have required the heavens to open and the angels to begin singing and I didn’t see that happening so I figured I would humor the guy and do what he asked when I was done we ended our little attempt to dry the field and put the hover back on the trailer. We stood there looking at the sod field still covered with water and pretty much concluded that the experiment into hover grass drying was pretty much a failure and with that I left.

It wasn’t until the next day that the true results of my effort were made known. A few of the ponds I had flown over were dried up! Tim was actually very pleased with what he saw and called my son Paul to tell him the results of our efforts. I was completely puzzled over the results and so I called the University of Illinois Department of Horticulture to ask them what might have caused the overnight sensation. They explained to me that in a standing water situation the thing prolongs the pond is the soil under the water. It seems the problem is not that the soil is so saturated with water it can’t run of but rather the weight of the water packs the soil and turns it into something similar to clay, which acts as a barrier. It is kind of like putting a sheet of plastic wrap on the ground and the water is left to evaporate into the air rather than seep into the ground. My activity with the hover caused the soil under the water to be loosened up which allowed the water to drain off. That little change in the soil allowed the water to drain rapidly into the soil and dry off the field. I pretty much saved Tim thousands of dollars in damage and he was real happy about that. I realized at that point there was some potential for some income from doing not only this but applying some other applications to this type of crop using the hovercraft. One of the worse things you can do with grass is pack it down, think about this would you want to have tire tracks from a tractor running across your newly sodden lawn? The less you have to run a tractor tire across your sod the better so a hovercraft with a sprayer on the back could apply liquid fertilizer and other applications onto the sod and never touch the ground. This could apply to a lawn as well as a sod field. I will continue this thought later.

How to use a hovercraft 2

This picture has nothing to do with the topic but I have never gotten into this tall of reeds and thought it was an interesting picture.

I wasn’t sure what Tim wanted so when I arrived I got out of the vehicle and asked Tim what he would like us to attempt. He informed me that he had a few puddles he wanted me to try to dry out. Per his instructions we pulled down a muddy tractor path to an area at the end of the shop portion of Tim’s property. I sat there staring at a “puddle” about the size of a ball diamond. The thing appeared to be about two to three feet deep. I thought that figures I came to dry out a puddle this guy wants me to dry out a small lake, I was glad I didn’t tell him straight out “Yes I can do this” because right now I was really doubting that we could do much. Tim’s first concern was for the damage this 16x8 foot hovercraft was going to do to the sod that was not underwater. We assured him the hover would not tear up his sod, he was a bit apprehensive to say the least when I fired up the V8 and the props began to crank out air. I let my Hovertechnics Hoverguard 800 slide off the trailer and onto Tim’s well-manicured sod. I could almost hear him let out a whimper as the 1500 pound beast settled on the grass. I let it warm up a bit then slowly moved it out into the open field where I could begin working on his problem. As I moved the hover I saw him looking at the sod and then I saw the expression on his face change from one of concern to one of hope, as he could not see where the hover was sitting. One nice thing about hovercraft is the wide stance they have allows the weight to be spread out over a large area, which translates into very low impact on the surface your sitting on. I was glad to see Tim’s face light up it gave me the assurance that we were heading in the right direction with this. Tim directed us to our first small lake. I felt like Moses trying to part the Red Sea but I did as Tim asked. I blew a lot of water around and as I was doing it I was glad to have the large winter front on the 800, which kept the nasty water, grass, and mud off me and on the hover. What a mess, at that point I thought I should have let Paul do this in the GT that way he would have been getting dirty not me. My son Paul is very creative and adventuresome as long as it’s my son Seth or me doing the flying. Paul never hesitates to volunteer me when it comes to this type of stuff, I’m sure this is pay back for grounding him or something when he was younger. At any rate the hover was working and after a few minutes we were able to disperse a lot of the water but it was still standing on the field. I was rather disappointed in the outcome but Tim wasn’t ready to give up yet he moved me on to the next pond.

How to use a hovercraft 1

I am going to start a series of postings that suggest practical applications and uses for hovers. I have always believed there are many applications for hovercrafts that have never been explored. A couple of things usually occur that seem to stifle the exploration of these uses. One someone who is inexperienced tries to do something that is total beyond their ability and they mess it up or two they use the wrong type of hover for the purpose at hand. I own TLS WindSled Inc a Hovertechnics distributorship based out of Belvidere Illinois USA we sell hovers and parts. Just a little advertisement you can visit us at www.hovercraftusa.org selling hovers is what we do so if we can find more ways to use them we can sell more hovers. I don’t want this to be boring, which I really don’t see how you can have a boring day doing something in a hovercraft, so I will share this in the form of things we have done and I hope those of you who read this will enjoy the little quirky things that always seem to happen when you hover. Perhaps some of you with hovers can use these ideas to create an income with your hover. I would ask you to first do your homework and second know what your hover can do and what it can't do and stay within the perimeters of what it can do. With that said here we go.

Grass drying have hovercraft will travel

I’m always looking for ways to better utilize hovercrafts so when someone ask me, “can you do this?” my response is usually, “I don’t know but I can try” I figure that way if it doesn’t work out they don’t think I’m a fool, because I told them I didn’t know, and if it does work out I am a hero.  We have a sod farm a couple miles from the house, my son Paul used to work for the man who owns it. Tim, at one time, had approximately 2500-3500 acres of flat to rolling hill sod connected through a central shop office area. Once you got on his property you could spend an entire day flying around the short cut grass of his property. I always wanted to get out there and fly my hovers but how do you ask a man to allow you to do something that he thinks would ruin his multi million-dollar operation. One summer a couple of years ago we had a huge rain fall overnight producing 5-7 inches of rain. Needless to say it left a lot of water standing on the fields. Paul was talking to Tim, the owner of Cooling and Sons sod farm, and they were talking about the devastating effects of the rain and standing water on Tim’s sod. Standing water cost thousands of dollars in lost sod due to rotting. Sod like most other crops does not do well when submerged for any length of time so Tim was faced with a dilemma how do you dry this out in a short period of time. Paul suggested he allow us to attempt to dry it out with our hovercraft. To my surprise Tim agreed and so we hooked up the hovers and headed for Cooling and Sons Sod Farm.