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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 2276.PDF
FLIGHT International supplement, 22 August 1963 Air-Cushion Vehicles HOVERCRAFT IN THE HOUSE Commons Debate Present Progress and Future Possibilities IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS On August 2 the subject of marine hovercraft oper ations were debated at considerable length. The proceedings were reported by Hansard as follows: Mr R. Gresham Cooke (Twickenham): I thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me the opportunity of raising the subject of the future development of marine hovercraft. I shall confine myself to the marine side and not go into the attractive features of hover- cars and hover rail-cars, because then my remarks would take up too much time. A number of strands in this problem have engaged my sympathy. First, the hover craft is one of the greatest and most imagi native inventions since the war. Secondly, the Denny Hoverbus, now running up and down the Thames, is run by Thames Launches, of Twickenham, under the auspices of one of my energetic constituents, a Mr Caisley. Both he and I have been struck by the tragedy that has befallen William Denny & Bros Limited, who may be going into voluntary liquidation, with the result that one promising type of hover craft may be in great danger in the future. Lastly, and incidentally, Mr Christopher Cockerell, the inventor of the hovercraft, was born within a mile of me at Cambridge. We used to knock each other about at children's parties. Both of us have a great interest in boats and sailing, but he has put his interest to much greater and more profitable use than I was able to do. Great work has been accomplished by 'he National Research Development Cor poration in taking up Mr Cockerell's funda mental invention in 1958, developing it, as it has done, in such a short time. Great credit is also due to four companies— Saunders-Roe, now part of Westland, Vickers-Armstrong Engineers Ltd, William Denny, and Cushioncraft Ltd. They have all played an important part in this pro gramme. The task of the N.R.D.C. is to encourage and develop big ideas which cannot be financed by any one company. The Corporation takes them up in the national interest and, for that purpose, can borrow money from the Treasury at Bank Rate and lend it out to individual firms at 1 Per cent over Bank Rate so as to allow the technological processes to be brought into Play. But these moneys are loans. The Cor poration puts money out to a company and hopes to recover its investment over the years by royalties on the licences of the Patents or by a share in the profits of successful inventions. Looking at the accounts of the Corporation, I noticed that i( s indebtedness to the Board of Trade is already nearly £6 million of the £10 million tQ at was originally granted to it by Act of Parliament. I regard the Corporation as a splendid launching machine for new projects, but I believe that more is required in the case of the hovercraft. We have reached the prototype stage in the hover craft, and now the nation must get it into production. I shall now explain how I differentiate this invention from the smaller inventions with which the Corporation generally deals. The very size of the project puts it into a different category. The final aim of this great venture must surely be a virile export market. I look forward to British hover craft, in ten or fifteen years' time, running up and down the Rhine, or even the Danube, sailing over the great lakes of the United States or Canada, running between the islands of the West Indies, forging its way up the Amazon and other Brazilian rivers, running between the Argentine and Uruguay on the River Plate, skidding over the swamps and rivers of Africa and India and even over the deserts of Australia, although I admit, of course, that it would not be a marine craft in that case. I understand that over 400 serious in quiries from abroad have been dealt with, but, of course, at the moment we cannot show our potential customers a commer cially operating hovercraft service. We have a lead of one or two years over other countries, but licences have recently been granted to Japan and the United States, and therefore we have very serious competitors who may catch up with us shortly. We have got as far as building a 38-ton vehicle with a payload of 12 tons, but it is not economic for scheduled services or for pleasure services at present. Solent Suggestion What I should like to see in the near future are two scheduled services on the most potentially economic routes in the country, which would be showpieces for all the world to gaze at and a shop window to which customers could come and buy things. I believe that these two services could best be run for a number of reasons in the Solent, where, every year, 5 million passengers cross the water between the Isle of Wight and the mainland and where the water is comparatively smooth and not subject to the large waves of the main ocean. One route for instance, might be from Portsmouth to Ryde and running, possibly, to Sandown on the south side of the island to replace the three old paddle steamers run by British Railways. Another route could be from Lee-on-Solent to Cowes, to carry passengers and cars, because it is ridiculous to find, when one goes to the Isle of Wight in the summer, that one has to book a passage for a motor car three months ahead. What I suggest is wanted for these two services are four hovercraft of about 120 tons each, capable of 40 knots and of carrying 500 to 700 passengers, thus re ducing the journey time from 50 minutes to 12 minutes. I believe that such craft would cost about £800,000 each, or perhaps a little more. By charging a fare of 5s per passenger, to make them comparable with the present services would not, of course, be fully economic, but they would have great advantages, such as flexibility of operation, landing on beaches, and so on. All the same, there will have to be some terminal, perhaps a concrete ramp on the beaches, and that would require some capital ex penditure, perhaps about £100,000 in all. Then there would have to be stores and working capital, so that about £2 million for each scheduled service would be required. Grant Advocated My hon Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr Woodnutt) wishes, I know, to catch your eye, Mr Speaker, for a minute or two, and if he does he will elaborate the need of the Isle of Wight for this sort of service. The total amount of money spent by the N.R.D.C. and by the four firms involved is not, of course, known, but I would estimate that it is not more than £2 million or £3 million in all. That is only about enough to buy the tailplane of a prototype of a modern airliner and nothing compared with the hundreds of millions that have been poured out in the last few years on the development of aircraft and air engines, much of which not only served military purposes but civilian purposes as well. Nearly every plane which is flying has been financed to some extent by defence expenditure, and the Boeing 707 is a supreme example of that. I know that there is one defence contract for a hovercraft and no doubt another would help. But it is not my purpose to discuss that today. It was reported in The Times of 15th July that the National Research Development Council is prepared to make up the differ ence between the price which a hovercraft manufacturer would have to charge and the maximum that an operator felt he could afford to pay for a commercial hovercraft, and that is a step forward. I should like my hon Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to confirm that that sort of idea has the approval of the Board of Trade. Such sums as would be advanced for this purpose would, I take it, be loans, carrying interest, and in my view we must go further. My proposal for the operators to get a scheduled service going would be that the operator be asked to put up one-third of the capital, that the N.R.D.C. should advance one-third and that the Government should make a grant of one-third. This is similar in principle to the sort of grant they 27
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