Description

Skim Aire Hovercraft. Part of the collection of Harry's rare and unusual vehicles

Click here for a slideshow of other vehicles in the collection

These may have been made by Aqua Terra

It could have been made by Windcraft M&M. The Hurricane was built in Toledo, OH in the 1970s by a company called Windcraft M&M. It was the next generation design to the SkimAir, otherwise known as the flying bathtub. Designed by Mike Clare, who went on to become one of the six founding directors of the Hovercraft Club of America.

Click here for information on hovercraft training

Also pictured here is the 1959 Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air-Car.The Curtiss-Wright Corporation developed the Model 2500 Air Car in November 1959 with the hope that a hovercraft would be accepted by the public as an alternative to the traditional family car. The hovercraft concept never caught on for general use, but the usefulness of the Model 2500 was not lost on the Army. In the early 1960s, the Army Transportation Research Command purchased two Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 Air Cars for the purpose of engineering and operational evaluation as part of an ongoing investigation into the military’s potential of air cushioned vehicles. The Model 2500 was given the new acronym GEM, Ground Effects Machine. The GEM was a 360-hp, four-passenger vehicle, which traveled at speeds of 20-38 mph at heights of 10-12 inches in the air. Although testing showed that the car was capable of moving over water and flat ground, it never fully succeeded over rough terrain. Even though the GEM never reached its full potential it did provide valuable data and material for the continued research and development of hovercraft technology. This Curtis-Wright GEM was one of the two purchased by the US Army and tested here at Fort Eustis.

Here is the Soviet Sormovich. A gas-turbine passenger hovercraft that operated on an experimental passenger line along the Volga River (Gorky – Cheboksary) in 1971-1972, which was 170 miles. A round trip from Gorky to Cheboksary took one day.



The Tupolev A-3 Aerosledge is an all-metal amphibious aerosledge, designed to transport passengers and light freight in remote areas of the Soviet Union. Officially known as the A-3 "Hope" ("Nadezhda" in Russian), it uses a single pusher propeller mounted behind the enclosed cabin to propel the craft over snow or water.



Tags: Skim-Air, Skim-Aire, Skim Air, Skim Aire, Hovercraft, WindCraft,