Why use hovercraft?

Hovercraft’s amphibious nature, versatility, speed, and minimal environmental impact make them a superior solution for search and rescue, disaster relief, military operations, transportation, and recreation.

Hovercraft shine in challenging environments, where conventional marine craft and land vehicles can’t be used, such as:

• The need to traverse surfaces which road vehicles and boats can’t traverse, such as thin ice, deep mud, marshes, swamps, wetlands, shallow water, and gravel.
• The need to transition seamlessly from one surface to another in the same mission, e.g. from water to land, water to mud, land to ice, land to deep snow.
• The need to transition quickly from land to water, without changing vehicle, such as launching marine rescues from land.
• Servicing locations where there is no suitable infrastructure, such as accessing beaches and river destinations without jetties.
• Where roads and other infrastructure has been submerged by floodwater.
• Where waterways have run dry or have subsurface and visible debris .
• Environmentally sensitive areas; hovercraft:
  • exert very little pressure on the ground / sand / mud; less than that of a bird standing, and much less than that of a human footprint. This eliminates soil compaction and harm to vegetation and fauna.
  • produce almost no wake, and so don’t cause bank erosion as they navigate along rivers.
  • are much safer for fish and marine mammals, because they glide above the water surface; there is no risk of a high speed hull or propeller contacting wildlife.

Hovercraft also excel in traversing fast rivers and rapids, because the craft travels above the water, not in it.