Snowmobile hovering

Funny how many people are surprised that the hover can travel over snow? Something just doesn’t seem to click when it comes to the ability of the hovercraft. Some of my best hover experiences have come during my winter flights either over a snow covered field or a frozen river or lake. The great thing about the hover on snow is the smoothness of the ride. The hover doesn’t just run over the snow it flies over it so the ride you get compared to a snowmobile or an ATV is totally different. Your hover actually floats over the ground like a bird and it makes no impact on the surface below. I have a local sod farm that has no issue with me flying my hover over his sod fields year round. He and I have talked about this in the past and he hates having snowmobiles run over his property because of the damage it does to the sod. ATV’s believe it or not also pack the sod when they run across the surface even with the snow covering. The hover however has a footprint equal to a seagull standing on one foot which is virtually no impact at all.

When you operate on slushy snow the hover is incredibly fast much like it is over flat smooth ice, when you fly over powder snow you get about the same amount of blow as you do when you are on water. What snow provides you with is a greater opportunity to fly. A little snow over an open field and you can basically fly your hover anywhere. A lot of snow and you can go where snowmobiles will typically bog down. Plus when you land you have such a wider impact surface that you don’t sink in.

Picture with me if you will flying on a river that is partially frozen, skimming over the ice and water with equal ease, you spot an open field that you want to explore so you point your hover toward the 4 foot bank and gun the engine the hover shoots up over the bank of the river that is snow covered and you go airborne as you clear the top of the riverbank. You land on the other side of the bank in an open field where no one has attacked the virgin snow. Your flying experience is awesome as you realize you are probably the only one who will view that spot on earth for a long time to come.

I’m looking forward to the 2012/13 winter season using my Hoverjet GT. This is an experience you have to try.

 

 

Survey hovercraft Gateway Services

To my knowledge Gateway Services Group are the first to utilize a hovercraft for survey purposes in the US. While the USGS has operated two Hovertechnics hovercraft for several years, Gateway Services Group has taken a bold step into the future by purchasing a hovercraft for use in their surveys for the pipeline industry. According to team member CB the situations they find themselves in requires a piece of equipment that can operate on a variety of surfaces and they believe the hovercraft will be the machine that will allow them to easily reach areas that previously they could not reach. On October 30th 2012 Gateway launched into a new era by purchasing and training their team as hover pilots. With a group of about 12 team members present on training day, we realized there are a lot of items that need to be ironed out with regard to use of the hover in the pipeline survey industry. According to SM a manager for Gateway Services Group the fact that the unit is registered as a boat but can be used as an ATV raises some interesting issues when it comes to regulations and safety requirements. The hovercraft is a crossover vehicle that operates as easily on water as it does on land, mud, and ice. While the Texas based company is doubtful they will see much ice they have had great concerns over reaching remote areas and moving people and equipment in and out of these areas.

Thank you, Gateway for choosing TLS WindSled as your supplier and for having the future vision to use a hovercraft in your industry. In future articles we will discuss some lessons we learned from partnering with Gateway and some innovative ideas it has spawned.

Prague OK Gateway servcies new hover

The road from Belvidere IL to Prague OK is a long one about 13 hours however the drive is awesome with clear skies and low wind. I've been listening to the weather reports and Hurricane Sandy is about to reach clear back into Chicago so being in Oklahoma is not a bad thing right now. My new customer Gateway Services Group is waiting for their new Hoverstar LC, I'm looking forward to delivering it to them and training some new hover pilots. We put a new type of coating on the upper hull of the hovercraft that should protect it against any obstacles they may run into (as new pilots often due) but this coating will also prevent the gel coat cracking that we've experienced in the past so I'm really excited about placing this new hover with them. Gateway is a survey company that has several other businesses and I am very happy to be working with them. My contacts at Gateway have been very nice people and I am looking forward to meeting them in person. I have about 2 hours left before the delivery and training session so I'm trying to put together all the last minute things I need to go over so I am prepared. New hovers to non-hover people is always a fun time, the look on their faces the first sight of the hover and the comments after they fly it for the first time are a huge reward. The hover travels over the surface like nothing you've ever experienced. I will be posting more about the delivery later.

Hovercraft Rescue Safely

It has always been a wonder to me that more fire and rescue departments don't use hovercraft as a rescue vehicle, with the ability to travel over land, water, snow, and ice it would seem to be a no brainer that the hovercraft is the most economical unit to purchase. To accomplish all the task a hover can do a department would need to purchase a boat, a snowmobile, and an ATV to be able to cover the same surface areas. Even if they purchased these vehicles it would fall short of the hovercraft. For instance, if you were traveling over ice on a snowmobile and it broke through it would be tough trying to go back and get the boat. Or consider this, if you are traveling along on water in your boat and you suddenly run into shallows with rocks, now wat do you do? In a hovercraft you simply continue on your way and complete the task at hand. The hover will travel over snow of any depth so if you need to rescue a person from the middle of a snow covered area you simply fly your hover to them. Due to the low footprint of the hover it is the perfect vehichle to perform mud rescue. The great thing about using a hovercraft for rescue is you can do it from the safety of the hover. No more climbing out to a victim on ladders or in inflatable suits, you simply fly up to the victim and pull them into the hovercraft and fly away. I was speaking with a Fire Chief recently and he was telling of a rescue they performed on ice, he said it took them nearly 45 minutes to get to the victim, he then asked me how long it would take if they used a hover and since the person was only 200 yards off shore I told him probably about 2-3 minutes from the time you launch the hover from the shore line to the point of returning. Huge difference when it comes to situations where time is of the essence. In addition to the reduction of time you would also eliminate or at least greatly reduce the danger factor for the rescue workers because they would not have to exit the hovercraft in most cases and if you did your rescue platform would be right there with you.  If you have any questions about using a hovercraft in your area for rescue purposes please contact me.

Asian Carp Hovercraft use

I first heard about Asian Carp a couple of years ago, I know you’re thinking "was this guy asleep or what?” to be honest with you I hadn't been to interested or concerned about them. Once I heard about them I started to research their presence and the impact on the environment and wondered if they actually do fly like I was reading. As a follow up to my research I decided to take a little trip down to Bath Illinois and check out the "Redneck Fishing Tournament" that was quite an experience, however it did not provide me with the answer to the question I had about how the hover would affect the fish. The only way to discover the answer was to fly with the fish so one day in late August I packed up my Hoverjet GT and headed toward Starved Rock State Park. After showing the park Ranger how the hover takes off on land (he was impressed) I headed off into the river for my Asian Carp adventure. Let me start this off by telling you everybody I spoke with told me not to travel the shore line in the shallows because they like to hang out there, so where do you suppose I headed, that's right the shore line. I flew the shore line for about two miles and saw nothing. I have to admit I was a bit confused by what I wasn't finding, with all I had read on these pest I truly thought I would face a barrage of flying fish. My experience now was disappointing to say the least, nothing not one carp, wait I take that back there was one it was floating belly up on the surface due to a boat strike. I decided to leave the main channel of the Illinois River and venture down the Vermillion. I turned down the Vermillion and as I traveled the river narrowed then it entered an area of rock, not rocks but boulders, so I had to slow down to maneuver around them, that's when it happened, a fish about 15 inches long leaped over the front of the hover. I have to tell you it scared the jeepers out of me but then the adrenalin kicked in and I was now in the hunt. What I noticed was that when I went fast and was flying over the surface I had no effect on the carp at all, that is probably due to the low environmental impact of a hover on the surface, when I slowed however it sets up a vibration in the water that will typically cause bass and other fish to leap. Now I was onto something if I wanted to avoid the fish fly fast if I wanted to stir the things fly slowly. Then I realized I probably didn’t want the stupid things jumping up and hitting me in the head so I decided to wait on hunting them until another day when I was more protected so I headed back home and started to design a protection cage for my next Asian Carp hunt. By the spring of 2013 my partner and I will be back on the Illinois and this time we’ll be ready for the Flying Fish, and this time we will be able to take pictures and video of the things. I can’t wait to go hunting on the Illinois next season. But wait a minute someone told me they are less active but still around in the winter. Hmm I wonder if I should try winter Flying Fish hunting?

Hover Sharing

Hovercrafts for the most part are what people consider an expensive toy. However when you stop and consider that you're getting a boat, snowmobile, and an ATV all in one machine the price of the hover averages out to a much lower cost factor. While the hover can do nearly everything a boat can do it typically won't travel as fast as a boat with the same horsepower, on the other hand a 10 foot boat for instance could not handle 3 to four foot waves, nor will it run up on land and then back to water, and try running your boat of any size on ice solid or thin and see what happens. The hover won't run quite as fast as a snowmobile but then it doesn't sink in the snow when you stop, it can travel on a partially frozen river or lake and if you break through the ice it won't sink. When it comes to ATV the hover allows you travel on land over various surfaces and while it will not climb the type of grades or the rough surface that most ATV's can travel over the hover will travel over mud like no ATV can and if you stop on the mud surface it will not sink. If you think about the cost of a 10 foot hover that will carry two people and then price out a boat that will carry two people you'll find the boat cost about five to eight thousand less than the hover, but then you have to add in the snowmobile and ATV options which means you add around six to eight thousand for an ATV and another eight to twelve thousand for the snowmobile and your savings buying any one of these recreational vehicles disappears and is actually higher by about eight to twelve thousand dollars. Still not convinced? Well we at TLS WindSled have decided to help you experience hovercrafting at a fraction of the cost through our hover share program. For a very low one time price you can share in the ownership of a hover and not just one but multiple sizes of hovers. Through this unique program you can own a two, three, and up to a seven person hover the sharing the cost of purchase with several different owners. If you would like to know more go to our web site and click the tab GT Hover Share and discover whether this program is something you could use to experience hovercrafting at a very affordable price. Participants fly hovers that are never more than 2 years old always maintained, gassed up, and insured ready for fun flying. We have group rates available so check it out at www.hovercraftusa.org

Happy Hovering

Treasure Hunting Hovercraft Style 2

Phil and I tried everything to get my hover started and after about 15 minutes of no success we started talking about options. About two hundred yards from us was a private boat ramp that Phil thought we might be able to use so he jumped in the river and started walking up toward the ramp to ask the owner if we could use it to drag my hover out of the river. While Phil was walking up to the neighbors I kept messing with the hover and getting things ready to tow it by hand up to the neighbors or anchor it to Phil’s dock if that was my only option. Phil came back after about 15 minutes and said the neighbor was good with us using his ramp so Phil said "I'm already wet so I might as well tow the hover up to the ramp, my wife is on her way home so she can take you to your vehicle and you can meet me over at the ramp and we'll load this thing up. With that he took the rope and with hover in tow began to walk toward the ramp. I climbed the hill back up to his house and waited for his wife. When Dee arrived we headed to my car and retrieved it and the trailer then it was back to the private ramp. When I got back there I backed down the long hill to the boat ramp and did what I seldom do, I backed my trailer into the water to load my hover. When I backed up I noticed the trailer seemed to stop so we decided that was far enough and floated the hover up onto the trailer. I strapped it down and started to pull out. My front wheel drive dug in and then spun the tires, I backed up and got a little bit of a nudge and tried again and with that the vehicle moved about a foot and a half and dropped off the concrete onto gravel and spun again. After about 5 tries of doing that Phil said he thought I was stuck in the river mud with the back of the trailer, he felt around on the back of the trailer and sure enough I had scooped up about a thousand pounds of mud and it was keeping me from pulling out. We floated the hover off the trailer again and I tried to pull the empty trailer out of the water but still it wouldn't budge, so Phil said he would get his all-wheel drive SUV and pull it out. So Dee went to get their other vehicle, when she got back we pulled on the trailer and it still wouldn't budge so Phil checked the back of the trailer and it was embedded in the mud about two feet. We decided that we would have to get some of the mud off the back of the trailer and so Phil and I proceeded to shovel the mud with our feet. It was like pushing lead powder and in the 103 degree temperature I was feeling the effects of the heat. All the time we were trying to do this I kept thinking, "Great I come out here to treasure hunt and all I get is one problem after another". After about 10 minutes we finally got enough mud off the back of the trailer for Dee to pull the trailer ahead enough to get out of the mud, we then pushed the hover up on the trailer with two of us pushing and Dee pulling the front with a rope and the hover went about two thirds of the way up on the trailer and stopped. The hover was full of water in the inner hull and was too heavy to lift so Phil suggested we strap it down pull off the ramp turn around on the hill leading to the ramp and let the hover slide up the rest of the way on the trailer. This guy was smart he obviously had done this before and at this point with the sun beating down on us and I was ready to just leave the thing in the ater and let it float away forever. Phil is an interesting guy he always stays calm and just figures out whatever he has to make it work, last winter he was out fishing by himself, tripped while moving around in his boat an fell into the freezing cold river with no life jacket on. As he fell into the water his head struck the boat motor and cut his head just above the eye, he managed to pull himself back into the boat soaking wet and bleeding he motored back to his house about a mile away climbed the 200 feet up the 40% grade hill to his house and got patched up. All I can say is "he is amazing" not real bright sometimes (no life jacket and alone) but he is also amazing. After loading my brick of a hover on the trailer strapping it down and moving up to the top of the hill we switched the trailer over to my vehicle and I was ready to go. The home owners had left and were now back so I could meet them and thank them for allowing me to use there ramp, Mike the homeowner said, "No problem if you ever want to use the ramp again feel free". He offered us a cool adult beverage to help soothe the wounded ego and refresh ourselves after the ordeal but by then all I could think of was getting this hover home and collapsing in a chair and licking my wounds so I declined thanked them and headed toward the house. "How disappointing", I thought, "I had all these plans of finding treasure and all I got was frustrated and cost Phil, his wife and two perfect strangers some grief" all that and no treasure! Then it dawned on me, Phil, Dee, had just spent 3 hours of their Saturday in 103 degree heat helping me load my hover onto the trailer at a perfect strangers ramp who has offered to allow me to use it whenever I want to. I guess I found some real treasure after all, it wasn't the precious metal I could exchange for money it was incredible friendship and generosity of the people who helped me. Treasure is not someone else’s lost valuables it is friendship and kindness and with that I realized Me and my hover became a little richer that day and I found a treasure that is rare and extremely valuable.