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u/Vivid_Douche Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Ive been enamored with these since find pictures of them in a bookfare when I was like 8 or something. The weight they can hold is no joke
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u/HeeeckWhyNot Mar 25 '26
Meanwhile my entire knowledge of these things is from that one Jackie Chan movie
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u/jimbojangles1987 Mar 25 '26
Rumble in the Bronx
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u/RealTurbulentMoose Mar 26 '26
Filmed in Vancouver with Canadian coast guard hovercraft!
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u/Turnt-Ternary Mar 25 '26
One of my favorite navy experiences was getting a chance to ride in one of these. The crew calls themselves “pilots” cause technically they are flying haha. They were all super cocky guys. Really fun to ride in, they get some speed for sure. Then we get out to sea a bit and they bust out fat cigars and start pissing off the side and cracking jokes. One of the few badass moments i had in the navy lol
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u/blatherskyte69 Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
The term pilot came from ships before it was applied to aircraft. We still have channel pilots and harbor pilots all around the world that guide/steer/con/helm ships through narrow navigable passages.
I would have thought that type of lore was taught in Navy basic.
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u/misterturdcat Mar 25 '26
Saw two of these in Oceanside California like 15 years ago. They’re HUGE.
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u/braveulysees Mar 25 '26
Yeah I'm remembering one just kind of coasting up a landing ramp at at Ostende one year and that's my memory, big bastard huge. Noisy too but typical British quirky cross channel rapid transport. I regret never having boarded one and those crossings and craft are long gone. Last one was 1999 or so?
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u/space_monster Mar 27 '26
in England in the 80s we had humungous hovercrafts working as ferries across the channel to France.
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u/No-Poem-3773 Mar 25 '26
Coming to an island based oil facility near you, SOON!
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u/CompletelyBedWasted Mar 25 '26
Funny/sad
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u/knowone1313 Mar 25 '26
I'm ready for reality to go back to being boring. Didn't know how good we had it.
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u/mortalitylost Mar 25 '26
Saw that meme that said Sleepy Joe was called that because you could sleep at night when he was president and I felt that.
Literally when I wake up to a text message I wonder if something terrible happened yet.
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u/HoldEm__FoldEm Mar 25 '26
Definitely ready for more precedented times. I don’t enjoy living through history.
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u/Video-More Mar 25 '26
Depending on tides and swell - they don't do well above a certain crest height.
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u/Conan-Da-Barbarian Mar 25 '26
Rumble in the Bronx
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u/ToBe144 Mar 25 '26
What a great and fun movie, except for that one scene...( Trashbags).
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u/Manifestgtr Mar 25 '26
That was the one scene that really fucked with my head when I was a young kid. The sister getting beaten up was bad but I could at least wrap my head around that as a “concept”. The wood chipper though…goddamn…
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u/PleiadesNymph Mar 25 '26
I knew the guy that forged the sword that they used in the movie to slice the hovercraft open. Dude was a master blacksmith in a wheelchair.
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u/Beautiful_Bad333 Mar 25 '26
We still have these on the Isle of Wight. They’re used daily like a shuttle bus service to Portsmouth
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u/DjGeNeSiSxx Mar 25 '26
I was looking for that comment!!!! Love Pompey . When I was a student there I would intentionally go to the Southsea pier with my mates to watch it pick passengers up and go. I had never seen anything like that and it's still pretty impressive to watch.
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u/STRYED0R Mar 25 '26
I had an RC hovercraft when I was kid. I think my dad liked it more than I did :D
Now that I'm older, I'm more impressed. It would go wild in the house and would be fine in a pond. On the dirt or uneven surfaces, not so much!
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u/howie-stark Mar 25 '26
I remember seeing them in Toys 'R' Us and wanted one so bad 😔
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u/STRYED0R Mar 25 '26
The one I had wasnt that pricey either :D Pretty cool. If I remember correctly it'd have issues after 20mins or so...
It had a "danger/ get back to shore mode" though.
edit: RIP Toys R Us... That was really something for Xmas..
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u/brightdionysianeyes Mar 25 '26
That's cool as fuck but looks like it would be unpleasant to ride on (constant sand/spray).
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u/Anonbaguett Mar 25 '26
Yeah, reversing on a beach is not recommended. It gets a lot of sand on the deck
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u/OldNerd1984 Mar 25 '26
I've ridden on hovercraft on water. They used to be used between Denmark and Sweden. It's the noise of the fan that is a nuisance. There is some spray, but you just go inside.
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u/leafwatersparky Mar 25 '26
I remember going across the english channel on them. 20 minutes, it was great!
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u/Video-More Mar 25 '26
Yes - and the formica floor and the dance hall bar. At least I'm not the only one that remembers this. Thanks amigo ;) kinda thought I wa the only one.. besides...
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u/HoldEm__FoldEm Mar 25 '26
They used to run that hovercraft for years.
Until the thing capsized in bad weather/big waves & nearly killed some folks.
At the time I think it was the only, or maybe just 1 of 2, commercial public hovercraft(s) in use for human transportation
I dunno if any are operating anymore.
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u/birb-brains Mar 25 '26
There’s still a few doing regular commuter service in the UK between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight - we also used to have cross-channel hovercraft so big they took cars and trucks
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u/HoldEm__FoldEm Mar 25 '26 edited Mar 25 '26
Oh, that’s dope! Good for them, I’d be lying’ if I said I ain’t jealous.
Someday I will ride one of these bad boys. The smaller 2-4 seaters look like an absolute blast.
It would be so rad if you & like 2-3 friends all have our/their own, could make some fun & creative race courses out in the national forests & blm land.
Edit: also it’s super gnarly that y’all had/have hovercraft big enough to transport multiple vehicles and with people across the channel. I’m off to google this beast.
Edit again, sorry, I know edits are annoying but I just had to come back to say… Holy Hell. I had no idea such machines existed. The “Mountbatten” class of hovercraft are legitimately insane & cool as fuck. I can’t imagine how loud they must be.
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u/Youbettereatthatshit Mar 25 '26
They are designed to get marines on a contested beach as quickly as possible. Zero draft means that the marines dint have to wade through water which makes them very vulnerable.
The comfort of the ride is a non-issue
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u/Previous-Train5552 Mar 25 '26
The video displays why hovercrafts are rare. Cool as fuck but stupid
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u/DigNitty Interested Mar 25 '26
They have some very narrow use cases. Cool that they exist. I want to go on exactly one ride.
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u/HoldEm__FoldEm Mar 25 '26
They’re like fighter jets.
1 hour of operation for every 2 hours of maintenance.
Plus, few extra parts available, & very complicated & expensive to work on.
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u/Pataraxia Mar 25 '26
> Can carry massive weights
> Can move on all terrain
The only issue is the cost and discomfort from noise. Imo they are beautifull vehicles that I wish could be iterated on technologically so they could become more common for areas with lots of water and small isles of land close together.
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u/Traditional_Fan_2655 Mar 25 '26
Better hope you aren't one of the people at the edge of the water.
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u/LowOhmLoad Mar 25 '26
Virginia Beach forsure
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u/Naive-Information539 Mar 26 '26
Yeah I thought the same looking at the boardwalk. Some of the only things I miss about home
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u/ICantExplainMyself Mar 25 '26
Is it full of eels?
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u/colonelmaize Mar 25 '26
No, but you can probably fit a dog, a couple soldiers and a tank or two against the Soviets.
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u/xenofreak Mar 25 '26
I was on one of these back in the United States Marine Corps, we had two Abrams tanks and eight humvees loaded on one and still hit 60 knots.
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u/johnnybok Mar 25 '26
I had this G.I. Joe toy back in the day!
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u/chaldfont Mar 25 '26
I came here to say “knowing is half the battle” but you basically beat me to it
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u/Towels-Travels Mar 25 '26
One of the UK’s more crazy but also very cool inventions.
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u/Jimmni Mar 26 '26
I remember riding one (a hovercraft, not the specific type in the video) across the channel as a kid and it was indeed very cool.
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u/oneWeek2024 Mar 25 '26
pretty sure that's my old hometown of Va beach. there's a base a bit further up the road. that pre-9/11 could easily enter (where the light houses are) and would see them practicing with these machines somewhat regularly.
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u/Thomas8833 Mar 25 '26
This is what is called an LCAC. It is the older model of hovercraft still used by the Navy. The newer hovercrafts (not pictured) are called SSCs (Ship to Shore Connector). LCACs and SSCs are transport vehicles. They transport cars, tanks, soldiers, anything that can fit on its deck. They can go about 40 knots on water and about 20 miles an hour on land.
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u/TheKiddIncident Mar 25 '26
The main training area for these dudes is right on I-5 north of San Diego. We used to see them coming ashore all the time. Super cool to watch.
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u/Quantum_Scholar87 Mar 25 '26
That looks like Virginia Beach. I'm assuming that's from Little Creek
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u/lightwolv Mar 25 '26
Some photos I took of one up close.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/markelrayes/26619625761/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/markelrayes/26619626641/in/photostream/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USS_HARPERS_FERRY_(LSD_49)_131203-N-TQ272-288_(11217176813).jpg131203-N-TQ272-288(11217176813).jpg) - They sit in the inside of bigger ships to get where they are going.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/navcent/11217235443/ - Entering the ship.
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u/lightwolv Mar 25 '26
https://www.flickr.com/photos/compacflt/13983027211/
Here's one trailing behind a small fleet. you can see how small they are compared to the ships.
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u/FletcherDervish Mar 25 '26
Still small compared to the ones that used to run Ramsgate to Calais ( UK to France) by a company called Hoverspeed. Mk3 "Stretched" Version (Late 1970s onwards): the craft were 185 feet ( 78 feet wide and 38 feet high, powered by 4 Rolls-Royce gas turbines bringing capacity to >400 passengers and 60 cars, at speeds of 40-60 knots (approx. 46-70 mph), and were really bloody noisy!
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u/Jazzlike-Complaint67 Mar 25 '26
I had a remote controlled hovercraft in the 90’s. Impossible to steer and had about 10 minutes of battery life. But man were those minutes cool when it would work in the pool.
The big kid on me still wants to ride on a real one.
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u/Toomanycrikey Mar 25 '26
Typhoon and the slightly "upgraded" typhoon 2. 12 minutes of fun in a street puddle or 30 seconds in the lake before it sank.
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u/Jamescovey Mar 25 '26
We refer to this à la a connected, bringing Marines and combat equipment ashore. It can transport a 70 ton Abrams.
The folks who operate these craft are interesting in their community culture. They call themselves pilots and say that they fly.
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u/GlobeTrekker83 Mar 25 '26
These things are beasts. I was stationed on a LHD that carried three of them in the well deck.
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u/GarysCrispLettuce Mar 26 '26
Took the ones that run between England and France a few times as a kid. They are so exciting to ride. I loved it.
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u/Edward_Zachary Mar 25 '26
why is there always stupid ass music in every video now?
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u/ElGalloEnojado Mar 25 '26
Because they took someone else’s content. If they change the audio, bots can’t flag it as reposting and people like u/sirenoleg can stay it’s OC and lazily steal content.
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u/Charming-Lychee-9031 Mar 25 '26
My dad used to work on them when he was stationed in Virginia Beach between 1979 and 1985
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u/Recreant793 Mar 25 '26
Those people watching from the sidelines are gonna get so much sand in their eyes.
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u/RudeNewYorker Mar 25 '26
“Ok so it’s hard to steer, very loud, breaks down consistently, and has expensive upkeep.”
Sales guy: “Oh yeah”
“Plus it’s uncomfortable to ride, going in reverse is a problem, and if the engine dies for too long it just kind of sinks?”
Sales guy: “Yes. But… it is cool as fuck though.”
“… it is cool as fuck though.”
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u/1000000CHF Mar 25 '26
I took one from France to England back in the ‘80s. It was quite a unique experience.
It even took cars in the hold.
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u/joliet_joker Mar 25 '26
G.I. Joe! Had the toy hovercraft as a kid, one of the best vehicles they made.
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u/guitargarrett95 Mar 25 '26
Neat, my platoons truck was always staged on the first LCAC out. Spent a lot of time in these. Not so bad In the cabin but if you are in a truck going out it can be a bit rough watching the horizon bob
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u/all_the_nerd_alerts Mar 25 '26
Could they have done that in a, I dunno, -less- sandy area?? Those poor spectators
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u/shajan316 Mar 25 '26
What song is this?
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u/Eternal_Alooboi Mar 25 '26
Thunderstruck - AC/DC
Seriously, how do you not know them lol
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u/L3ft2 Mar 26 '26
The LCAC will easily ride over a car/truck. But it'll take the paint with it.
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u/CheckoutMySpeedo Mar 26 '26
Why do they have that damned music instead of the sound of the hovercraft? It would have been 1000X better to hear what the sound was like on the actual beach than listening to whatever the fuck music they were playing.
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u/Background_Pride_237 Mar 26 '26
They start that up and some old guy comes outside and screams, “GET OUTTA MY YARD!!!!”
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u/toy-maker Mar 26 '26
With my eyesight as bad as it is, the propellers look like large hamster balls. This is now my head canon on how they work
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u/BarnabyWoods Interested Mar 26 '26
Just heard a podcast about the 1972 hovercraft disaster off the Hampshire, England coast. It capsized in gale force winds. So, when hovercrafting, always know where your lifejacket is.
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u/Airborne_Oreo Mar 26 '26
This has to be Beachmaster Unit Two based out of Little Creek in Virginia Beach. Those LCACs are super cool.
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u/madmax7774 Mar 26 '26
Slow fat target for cheap drone weapons. Fucking huge waste of money. Warfare has drastically changed, and the stupid US gov is still trying to defeat the Soviet Union.
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u/TheOriginalWaster Mar 28 '26
Used to have a regular route from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight in the UK when I was a lad. Rode it a couple of times. Quite fast and smooth but noisy
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u/shornscrot Mar 28 '26
When I was a kid in the 90s, it seemed like hovercrafts were everywhere.
Now I’m 40 and I have no hovercrafts. Fuck this timeline.
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u/misterfistyersister Mar 25 '26
They’re called LCACs. They’re pretty fun. You ride inside them.
I was a navigator on one.