RN Hovercraft 'drivers'....pilots or helmsman?

[Flyingblind]

Chaps,

Recent late night discussion here about the past fleet of RN hovercraft had me of the opinion that the "drivers" may have been winged due to the fact that the vessel did IMO "fly", others with more salt in their blood scoffed at this comment and insisted that they were in fact Helmsman.

Bottels of red were promised and the dawn of a new day see's me here seeking wisdom.

With sobriety comes clarity and i think i may be in error, anyboby with some knowledge of the issue willling to post a reply and educate me in the errors of my thinking would be apreaciated.

Regards

FB.

[Gainesy]

Well the civvy operators have to hold a Master's Ticket, JAA ATPL and a PSV Driver's Licence...:)

[Spurlash2]

Can't remember about the drivers, but the the Hovercraft Trials Unit at Daedalus had Navy Aircrewmen as the navigators.

Ignore the skimmers 'helmsman' malarky; the hours were logged in their flying logbooks, and the crewmen had flying pay, so I'd go for the flying thing.

[Airborne Aircrew]

the hours were logged in their flying logbooks

Logged as Ultra-Low-level no doubt... A lot like a ground run... :}

[doubledolphins]

Think you will find that the chap sat at the controlls was usually the "Captain" . Sorry bit of a cop out.
If he was a "helmsman" he would have been responding to orders given to him from the Captain or Officer of the Watch or Navigating Officer (Pilot, er, more confusion) stood next to him, er, in other words, I don't think so. ;)

(Spash, do you realy mean Aircrewman or Aircrew? Ah yes, thought so.):ok:

[Spurlash2]

Dear Target, sorry, Double Dolphin:ok:,

Don't quite get the banter; but defo Aircrewman (ie: Petty Officer/Chief Petty Officer) The one crewman I do remember on the HTU was a Jungly crewman from 845/846.

[doubledolphins]

Realy? always assumed it was an awficer at the controls. I stand corrected. If this realy was the case and the man with his hands on the wheel was a senior rate then he would probably rather be reffered to as Cox'n. However I am pretty certain that the recruiting films just prior to my joining showed an officer at the controls.
Suplimentary question, who sat at the "helm" of HMS SPEEDY, a boeing jetfoil used for trials in the late 70's?

[airborne_artist]

My guess is that Speedy had a CPO Cox'n - I had a brief sojourn in HMS Sabre in 79, and she had a Lt as Commanding Officer, a Lt as 1st Lt, a Chief ERA and a CPO Cox'n, who was normally at the helm entering/leaving harbour, and who was certainly in charge of the vessel. He was also a keen and capable cricketer and was on first name terms with the predominantly officer members of the RN team and committee.

I remember we had FOST on board one day and he and the Cox'n spent most of the visit discussing matches past.

[Spurlash2]

DD

Pay attention.

The navigator position was an Aircrewman. The driver was commissioned.

[CirrusF]

Problem with Speedy was, as with all hydrofoils, it was unwieldy and difficult to handle when in displacement mode. This might be a better bet if there was still a need for high-speed interdiction work:
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[Radfan64]

Having spent over 2 years on the IHTU at Daedalus I can confirm that Captains were all pilots from FAA, Army Air Corps and RAF. Navigators were PO seaman branch navs, not FAA. Techs were a mix of aircraft techs and maintainers from all three services.

On the Army's 200 Hovercraft Squadron at Browndown the CO and a few pilots were RCT (Royal Corps of Transport) officers. The majority of the pilots were known as drivers and were in fact RCT Senior NCO ex-HGV1 truck drivers. Technicians on 200 Squadron were all REME aircraft technicians.

When the units were disbanded, all officers were granted a civil Hovercraft Captains license whilst none of the NCO pilots were afforded that honour.

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

Why Radfan Camel Troop? Were the Hoovers used in the beach logs role? Or did Port Troop have plenty of gash (Air Force sense) coxswains?

[timex]

The current Hovercraft in service with the RM are crewed and driven by Landing craft Coxn's, no Pilots license required. (Unless things have changed in the last couple of years)!

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[Spurlash2]

RF64

I was at deadloss in the 70's and knew there were Navy Crewman on the IHTU. If blokes from the Seaman branch were employed as nav's on the hovercraft, I was not aware of that; but I was (am) only aware of Navy Crewmen.

No disrespect to the codheads involved:)

S2

[doubledolphins]

S2 got my glasses on now, what a plonker am I. Far too long in the submarine world. Thank goodness I'm out of it now!

[The Old Badger]

Having spent a year at Daedalus and 8 months out in Hongkong on the RN Hovercraft Trials Unit (NHTU) which followed on from the Intersrvices Hovercraft Unit (IHTU) maybe I can throw some light on at least the service side of "drivers". During my time on the Unit 1978-1980 we had the Boss who was a Commander RN ex-leader of Freds Five (Vixens I believe), the XO was a submariner who went on to be CO of HMS Speedy (the RN hydrofoil), then there was the training officer ex-jet jockey, an ex-canberra pilot, an exchange US Navy nuclear engineer and myself (the only helicopter pilot at the time - the Boss didn't like helicopter pilots until I showed him the error of his ways! The "navigators" were one officer observer, two aircrewman (at least one jungly), a seaman RP (radar plotter). The maintenance was all done by Fleet Air Arm guys ( a really great bunch!). We had 3 SRN6 hovercraft, the BH7 - which is still at Lee-on-Solent minus "the worlds largest driving airscrew" and the VT2 which used to be a "sidewall craft" until they turned the gearboxes over to point upwards and put an all-around skirt on it.
I had some interesting "adventures" out in Hongkong and managed to capture 199 Illegal Immigrants (IIs) during my time.......
Before I get really boring, back to the original question of Drivers or Pilots.... The civilian drivers were called Hoverpilots but the Navy titles depended on whether you were already a real pilot, in which case we called it driving, or a submariner/engineer/seaman in which case they called themselves "Pilots" as it was the closest they would ever come to being in charge of anything "airborne".
Having said that I have had an SRN6 completely airborne, if only for a few seconds (if I'd known about the couple sunbathing on the other side of the sandbar I might not have tried it!).
I fly over 539 Squadron Royal Marines daily and look down on their hovercraft and only yesterday there was a bright yellow civvy one outside the hangar at Mountbatten, must go and take a look.
On another note if there are any Ex-RN hovercraft people out there it would be nice one day -before we all die of old age- to get back in touch or even have a reunion!
Tony T

[doubledolphins]

As an aside, when the civvy cross channel services stated in the 60s, my father, a Merchant Navy Officer aplied for a job but they all went to airline pilots. What exactly they had to do to qualify on hover craft I don't know. But I hope it was more than just the short exam I had to do in "Seamanship", actually Rule of the Road, that I had to do to validate my US seaplanes rating for the CAA.

[Rangeblind]

One of the original reasons why I wanted to be an RN Aircrewman was to be a Hovercraft navigator – Only realised that they also did Helicopter stuff when I got to PFT at Daedalus

[JWB11]

I was a PO(RP1) on the Interservice Hovercraft Unit which became the RNNHTU - I was a Hovercraft Navigator & also the Hovercraft Navigators Training Officer, the course was run by the Navigation section HMS Dryad and all Navigators were fish heads & not ACMN.

[ricardian]

Just as I was leaving RAF Sharjah in 1964 there were plans to hold trials on the use of an hovercraft as a replacement for the airfield crash rescue trucks. One major point of concern was whether the hovercraft was a vehicle which could be driven by a RAF Regiment fireman (rank LAC, SAC or Cpl) or an aircraft which had to be "driven" by an officer.

[Union Jack]

The funny thing about this "argument" is that the words "pilot" and "helmsman" are believed to originate from the same medieval Greek word "pedota" .....:ok:

Jack

[Hardly Worth it]

I was a PO(RP1) on the Interservice Hovercraft Unit which became the RNNHTU - I was a Hovercraft Navigator & also the Hovercraft Navigators Training Officer, the course was run by the Navigation section HMS Dryad and all Navigators were fish heads & not ACMN.

Two of my former colleagues were attached to the hovercraft unit as navigators , they were very definitely Royal Navy Aircrewmen ! :ok: