SRN4 Mother Hovercraft Channel Crossing
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ม.ค. 2025
- Big, noisy, like a big prop plane 20 feet off the ground. Takes in 2 lanes of cars, from 1989. Another crazy British 60's gadget like the concorde they don't use anymore. The Navy LCAC landing hovercraft was scaled up from the SK-5, licence built SRN.5 (saunders roe) which saw some combat in Vietnam.
I worked on this. I had to climb down inside all the bouyancy tanks to clean them and re-seal them after it was stretched from its original size to twice as long.
There was a cross-channel fast catamaran at the time which was in competition for the passenger traffic and they said it was the fastest way to cross the channel. After giving it a head start the N4 overhauled it and went past it SIDEWAYS just to prove a point.
Cool machine!
Nice to see a video of an SRN 4Mk2. Shame you didn't have time to video her departing but thanks for posting. Mk2 travel with a cushion 8 foot high at the front and 6 foot at the rear.
Two cross channel SRN4s are parked at the hovercraft muesum in Lee on Solent. Along with loads of other classic hovers.
It may have been a crazy 60's British invention but these Mountbatten class hovercraft worked well for 35 years and still were faster than anything else across the English Channel. And in fact because of easy and speedy loading and unloading is still faster than today's 'Le Shuttle' Chennel Tunnel car/train service. It was also safe and great fun to ride! Greatly missed,the Seacats are not a touch on it and take forever to load and unload!
Great footage. Thank you.
The SRN4 and other British hovercraft were the basis for the US marine hovercraft of today.
The SRN4 is still the mighty one!!!
I saw one of the beasts rev up and set off once when I was about 10. Incredible event to see. Shame you don't see many of them around.
Ah the memories - I just noticed that was "Swift" that used to operate out of Ramsgate, the other one was called "Sure".
And " Sir Christopher Cockerell" with " The Prince of Wales"
Fantastic video! Swift was always my favourite... There aren't that many videos of the SRN4 Mk II so fantastic memoire. Any more where that came from?
@malcolm O i rode these things many times in all weathers ..you are right..fuel cost was one contributory factor in their downfall (the other being the channel tunnel which runs more often an in all weathers) but it was by far my favourite way of crossing the channel
Come to think of it at least the Concorde flew. My son is hooked on Top Gear too, dang brits....
WOW.
@dek469 Always remember, capslock is cruise control for cool! ;)
last time I was on the channel was '89 and no more. Other guy with reply has plenty though
@dek469 i couldn;t have put it better myself ,,well said xx
see story - SRN5 -> SK-10 -> JEFF
SRN5 -> SRN4
Related, but common ancestor is SRN5.
then the brits gave the jet engine to the soviets to make the MiG-15.....
They also built a couple of battleships for the Japanese and showed them how to make fire control computers.
Brilliant reply. A guy who can't spell "schnitzel" (and a whole bunch of other words), use upper case letters or apostrophes where required and has a rather distorted version of history telling somebody they should try school. I'm loving the irony.
CRAP - Concorde was more British than French. The engines were developed from the TSR2 - an awesome plane way ahead of it's time cancelled by the Labour government to please the Yanks.
we did get a life when we left england. its called school. try it.
I'm Europe and I hate good things.
we dont mind the yanks getting so much from us, hovercraft, jump jets, SST, after all they gave us coca cola and mcdonalds....
...7 years later...
And now England is the fattest country in Europe, so apparently lack of self-control is not just the domain of Americans.
@skyservice78 "Some of the Americans are sooo thick.. go get a life. " hey wait, I'm a anglophile who actually recognizes that the British pretty much DID invent everything .....
i liked the jetfoil better
YB-49
XB-70
SST
Hans von Ohain gave us the jet engine. Sir whittles didnt fly until 41'. Von Ohains flew in 39' Yep they were both involved in jet propulsion but the germans got it right first. id think people who got whupped by the cvountry that develpoed it first would know that. maybe we should have stayed out of the war. germany would be closer to us and i want some shnitsle!