I'm working my way back into hovercraft land.
There's been quite a bit of hovercraft news out of Alaska recently. The most recent element is the pilot talking about how driving the hovercraft is like "a marble on top of a upside down wok".
The hovercraft has been running for a little while now. See a video of it:
It's been a long story with the improvements for a new federally funded airport pushing the old float plane out of business.
Here's some hard data on operations. It's pretty good 95% operations in December.
The hovercraft displaced the Grumman Goose because the dock was replaced by the hovercraft ramp. And the plane was required to land on the rocky beach. Being a WWII relic they didn't want to risk damaging it on the rocks. And the hovercraft is necessary because the federally funded airport didn't fit on the inhabited island. So it was built on the neighboring island.
Here's a video of it landing in the harbor.
One more article on the topic worth reading.
