Example applications

Passenger transport

Hovercraft can transport passengers by the most direct route, e.g. across lakes, bays, and ice, rather than being restricted to circuitous and congested road. Further time savings can be achieved by hovercraft being able to operate faster than boats and land vehicles in many locations, due to traffic, wake, and other restrictions.

Hovercraft travel from point A to B without the need to follow channel markers significantly reducing travel time.

Boarding and disembarking hovercraft is normally done on land, which of course eliminates the hazard of boats moving with waves, wake and current, while crew and passengers tie-up, and board. Some routes regularly cancel boat services in even moderate swells, due to this problem. Hovercraft provide a solution.

Search and Rescue

The ability to travel on land and water makes hovercraft the natural choice in flood rescues, and avoid the problem of rescue boats encountering multiple land/water transitions in the one mission, but not being able to proceed without a tow vehicle and a trailer. This ability also facilitates freighting essential supplies to flooded areas.

The seamless movement from land to sea and back again minimises the total rescue time and eliminates the risks associated with moving patients from a boat to a land vehicle.
Hovercraft have rescued many people from boats and jet-skis that have become trapped in mud in inter-tidal zones.

Coastal and beach rescues by hovercraft can be much faster than by rescue boat, because hovercraft can fly quickly from sand, to shallow water, to deep water, then back to shore, without the usual delays and hazards of manhandling boats from land to water.
Hovercraft can safely reach and recover people who are stranded on, or fallen through, thin ice, a feat which no other vehicle can achieve.

Tourism

Hovercraft allow tourism operators to showcase difficult to access areas, while minimising or eliminating environmental impacts such as wake, erosion, propeller strikes, ground disturbance, and plant damage. Hovercraft also provide fast, enjoyable, and memorable passenger transfers for resorts and eco-lodges.

Environmental monitoring

Scientists and habitat custodians use hovercraft to observe and monitor sensitive, difficult to access environments such as shallow lakes, river banks, and wetlands.