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