Quiet Hovercraft Project

[Keith Oakley]

The march 2017 special cruising edition of the HCGB’s Light Hovercraft magazine features a lengthy technical report on the history of the Quiet Hovercraft Project and the noise analysis techniques we’ve used to get to grips with the noise challenge.

Back in 2015 when I started this thread I announced we had achieved one craft (Q1 – the Quiet One) that achieved noise levels that met the EU Directive standard for Recreational Boats but we were struggling at that time to get a second craft down to the same noise level. After 2 years more work we’ve finally cracked that problem and indeed a third craft, built using the same key low noise principles but to different design by John Gifford, has now also got down to the same level.

Now that the experiment has been repeated twice more with the same successful results we’re beginning to feel we are starting to understand the detailed ‘checklist’ for a Quiet Hovercraft. Development work is continuing with both prototype craft so we can refine some aspects of the checklist. Hopefully the final checklist will be published in a future edition of the magazine.

I’ll be happy to try to answer here any noise related questions from members.

[Aaron]

Great news Keith, well done on keeping up the good work.

Such a shame you are so far away, would be really very helpful, not to mention, fascinating to "pop round" for a chat on some kind of regular basis.

Hope things are going as well with you health and personal life as they sound like they are with the Hovercraft R&D.

Talk soon,
Cheers
Aaron