Transportation: Floating on Air

The thing seemed straight out of a science-fiction thriller. It floated inches off the ground, sounded like a chain saw, and maneuvered like a drunken crab. The contraption stopped alongside a plane bound for Los Angeles, and Oakland Mayor John Houlihan stepped out onto the deck, shouting into a microphone: “Gentlemen, this has been a wonderful experience! We’re really going to pioneer in this field.” The mayor was inaugurating the first scheduled passenger service in the U.S. of a Hovercraft, the British-designed flying machine that rides above the ground on a cushion of compressed air, can skim both land and sea (provided there are no major hills or waves) at a brisk 85 m.p.h. This one had just floated over San Francisco Bay, scooted up a ramp without breaking stride, and roared on across the Oakland airstrip to its destination. The scheduled shuttle between the Oakland and San Francisco airports should prove the perfect opportunity for the Hovercraft to show its stuff. Cheaper to run than helicopters and far more versatile than hydrofoils, the amphibious craft can cozy right up to an airplane, load up and transport its 15 passengers to a terminal on the other side of the bay so smoothly that they will not know when they are riding over cement or sea. Not that the ship is a veritable magic carpet. The engine makes so much noise that passengers have difficulty carrying on a conversation, and the forced air kicks up so much dust and spray that the visibility through the windows is almost zero. But the engineers are learning fast. Early in the spring, a test Hovercraft capsized while making a high-speed turn, but that has not happened since.