Let them go.

A brief moment in history, too large to move, not innovative enough to preserve, just like the Bristol Brabazon, and who remembers that now?

Looks like it's gone... Must give the Ryde service a go again, last time I went over by hovercraft was about 1978.

Edit: I'd have preserved a SARO Princess too ORAC... it's only money...

As a schoolboy, we went (camping) to the IOW (1956?).

Our trip included a boat tour around the Solent, and the Princesses were cocooned on the slipway - a magnificent sight!

They were there in 1967, often observed climbing out of Hamble to the local flying area over the Isle of Wight.

The only reason this is now 'ugent' is because the Hovercraft Museum has sat on its hands for 11 years, enjoying the publicity of the SR.N4s but not actually taking steps to preserve them. All this hype about 'national treasures' sounds a bit hollow in that regard.

I am aware that they were privately-owned, but the Museum could at any point have made an offer for one or both instead of being content to use them as the centrepiece of their museum, available for tours etc... But easier and cheaper just to maintain the status quo despite the lack of long-term prospects. That's not a suitable policy for a museum. The problems of the land ownership have been known for at least five years.

So now we are being asked to stump-up from our tax revenue to cover for inaction in the past?

Saw one of the props moving around due to strong winds at Lee-on-Solent last week, looked as though it was coming 'back to life' haha- Didn't see this coming :( Would be a shame for both of them to go. . .

Signed the petition.

It would be a shame to see the SRN4 scrapped. I only travelled across the Channel by hovercraft once, back in the early 1970s on the Ramsgate to Calais route in the pre-stretch Mk1 version. But in later years I used Hoverspeed's SeaCat service to Ostende (now sadly terminated) and would often watch the skill of the SRN4 captains as they manoeuvred their beasts at the adjacent hoverport.

A great pity that there aren't any ferries to Belgium from the South these days, the SeaCat route was perfect for trips to Germany rather than an extra hour through France.

Moving an SRN4 to Duxford
 

Oh, just seen that 3wheels told me they're not aircraft, so the 'fast taxi, or get it in the air' problem they had in Vulcan land WRT RR engines need not worry anyone.
As a thought experiment, how would one move such a thing to e.g. Duxford? Even if it were seaworthy one could only get it to Ipswich? Could it ever be possible to move something 24m (24m!) wide across country - Answers on a postcard please.

El Bunto - I think you're wrong to criticise the Museum. If it's like any similar museum it's probably run by a surprisingly small number of people with very little money to spend. Very difficult to find the time or resources for long term planning.

As a young boy brought up in Hampshire, I clearly remember seeing one of the hovercraft prototypes at the Beaulieu Motor museum. This was before the museum was subject to a massive revamp in the late 60/70's? It was at the far end of the museum by the go-kart track and was a pretty forlorn sight even then - it was clearly sat on some sort of structure underneath it.

It was light blue/grey in colour, with what appeared to be some sort of vertical 'chimney' in the middle of it, presumably it would have been where the single fan was mounted. As I say, this was a hovercraft prototype. It was just sort of sitting there, looking very neglected. I wonder it if just disintegrated in the end due to lack of care?

With regard to an earlier post about the Saunders Roe flying boats. We used to regularly travel over to the IOW from Southampton on the car ferry and I clearly remember the flying boats all cocooned up - two of them, in the water. Close by were five or six similarly cocooned motor torpedo boats. Anyway, when the flying boats were scrapped a chap up the road from us bought two of the underwing floats with the intention of turning them into a catamaran. I kid you not.

Over the succeeding years we used to pass by his house, and there behind his front garden brick wall slowly the two floats were somehow connected together and even a centre mast installed. Everyone in the neighbourhood wondered how on earth he was going to haul this 'craft' out of his garden and somehow get it in the sea. It never did, it lay there languishing from many, many years before disappearing. Of course I wish I had taken photo now. I have signed the petition as I think it's important to be able to show future future generations 'this is what we did'.

yellowtriumph,

That would have been the SR-N.1:
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=...1290884970&f=1

http://www.nationalhistoricships.org...ster/625/srn-1

Now in storage with the Science Museum at Wroughton.

I saw it twice - once at Farnborough, where I think this photo was taken and once quite by chance, as my dad was driving by, on the beach in Dover Harbour after its famous Channel crossing. Since this was before it had skirts fitted, it must have been a VERY calm day!

I took the car over a couple of times, and used the hovercraft: a combination of thrill factor and a ferry strike. I remember a constant jolting ride (the sea state appeared just average), and I couldn't see out as all the windows were immediately covered with a fog of spray. Far from the magic-carpet ride I was expecting.

As an aside, a friend once knew a rather large lady who fancied him somewhat: they were in a group sunbathing on a beach when she threw herself on top of him. He later described it, in his broad Scots accent, as ".....like a hovercraft settlin'.....". I was reminded of this, watching an incoming SRN4 slowly contact the ramp. It was rather apt.

IFT,

Thanks for looking up that photo. That certainly looks about right, the 'cabin' at the front does look like a milk float affair!

When I saw it at Beaulieu it had the skirt on it, but as I say it was looking very forlorn so I'm really glad to read that it is still around in one form or another.

I have just found this newsreel about the Channel crossing:



Is that the SS United States in the background at 0:10?

Definitely not the United States. Could be the FrenchLine's Liberte.

THE FRENCH LINE ? SS LIBERTE ? 1950s | Cruising The Past

As a CCF RAF Section cadet I blagged my way onto an CCF RN section week's camp at Lee on Solent in I guess the late 50s. they took us for a flight in a Dominie (2 turning, not 2 burning) over the Solent, and there was the SR-N 1 , Cockerill's prototype

yellowtriumph wrote: Are you sure that wasn't Lord Montagu....:ooh: ??

Oo, you are awful...........

Groundloop,

Yes, I think you are right.

The ship in the film didn't look quite right for the SS United States, but I couldn't find any other liner with two large funnels like that.

I think it is the ss America, later sold as cruise ship to a Greek shipowner