# Why haven't hovercraft been commercial successful?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [January 20, 2010, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663 "2010-01-20T05:32:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/1 "2010-01-20T05:32:13Z")
I saw an old British movie on TV recently in which one of the characters took a hovercraft from Dover to Calais, and I thought “What a cool way to travel!”
Of course, it turns out that the hover-ferry service between the UK and France was discontinued in 2000 and (apparently something to do with competition from the Chunnel making it unprofitable), which is a shame.
But a bit more searching around on Wiki shows that the Cross-Channel and Cross-Solent service (which is still going) are about the only notable commercially successful uses of hovercraft. They seem like a pretty useful craft (being able to operate on land and water), so what’s kept them from being a bigger success? High operating costs?
Anyone got any insights?
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/2 "2010-01-20T05:34:50Z")
Because they keep filling up with eels.
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### Author:  [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/3 "2010-01-20T05:37:43Z")
If the military still uses some hovercraft, it means there is still some advantage to using them. How it translates into civilian travel I have no idea.
Its an interesting question, though. What did keep them from becoming a preferable/more mass produced form of water travel? Cost only?
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### Author:  [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/4 "2010-01-20T05:45:52Z")
I travelled on that in the 70’s.
It seemed fairly cool in theory but in practise was fairly noisy, and vibrated a lot from memory. The Chunnel made it fairly obsolete. They tend to be fairly weather sensitive from memory, and shorter range. So the time savings in practise are fairly minimal (as in 40 minutes vs 90 minutes kind of thing), and they were expensive to run.
There just arent many niches for them as far as large scale hovercraft go.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/5 "2010-01-20T05:47:37Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#):
>
> They seem like a pretty useful craft (being able to operate on land and water) . . .
I dunno about water, but any land vehicle that rides on a cushion of air is going to have some serious problems with steering and braking. It’s like driving an air-hockey puck. Also has the fuel consumption of a helicopter. [More here.](http://davidszondy.com/future/car/hovercar.htm)
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### Author:  [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/6 "2010-01-20T05:54:48Z")
The fuel costs to run them tends to out weigh their versatility. Add to that they are expensive to engineer and maintain compared to the much simpler watercraft available.
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### Author:  [@Gary\_Baldy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Baldy)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/7 "2010-01-20T06:04:02Z")
I have to agree that the hovercraft has three major drawbacks: steering, stopping and powering. If hovercrafts were successful, SUV owners would be seen in a more positive light.
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### Author:  [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/8 "2010-01-20T06:28:51Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#):
>
> If the military still uses some hovercraft, it means there is still some advantage to using them.
Sure, if high casualty count is your goal…
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### Author:  [@This\_Just\_In\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/This_Just_In_2)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/9 "2010-01-20T07:11:14Z")
Hovercrafts are both commercially successful and useful [as a kicking toy](http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_3033540).
Seriously, this is a really cool product for kids and adults alike. The only drawback is it is a little noisy - kind of like a hair dryer.
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### Author:  [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/10 "2010-01-20T10:45:23Z")
Just to echo what everyone else has said: the major intrinsic disadvantages (cost, control, sensitivity to weather) out-weighed the advantages (speed, travel on land as well as water) for practically all commercial situations. Speed, well people have already menationed the Chunnel, but hovercraft also have to compete with fast ferries that can be much larger and not that much slower (about 40 knots against 60ish), as for travel over land, this is of no benefit for most ferry routes in countries where you have well developed major ports with RoRo docks.
Like **Otara** , I actually crossed the Channel in one of the big Mountbatten class craft back in the seventies and it wasn’t much fun. Noisy and with a strange jerking motion as it hit the waves, you couldn’t even see out the windows due to the spray thrown up around the skirt.
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### Author:  [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/11 "2010-01-20T11:04:32Z")
Thanks for the replies so far, everyone! I missed the opportunity to cross the channel by hovercraft in '96 because of the weather (the conventional ferry was fine though) and in '98 they’d just gotten the Chunnel working properly (and affordably!) so there was no way I was going to pass up an opportunity to get a “Channel Tunnel” stamp in my passport…
I figured they were probably expensive to run, but just seemed to be one of those really nifty pieces of technology that _someone_ would find a way to make viable because… well, just because. You know, like Concorde. 😛
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### Author:  [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/12 "2010-01-20T11:18:10Z")
Used to have them in Hong Kong for commuting to discovery bay. It was not a real pleasant experience. There were better, faster and cheaper ways to do the water commute and the hovercraft were taken out of service.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/13 "2010-01-20T12:26:37Z")
It’s bad at everything it does - a lousy land vehicle, and a lousy boat.
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### Author:  [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/14 "2010-01-20T13:31:22Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> Because they keep filling up with eels.
Can’t believe that the very first poster beat me to the punch.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/15 "2010-01-20T14:22:08Z")
Besides “ordinary” hovercraft, why is it that _ekranoplan_s not only aren’t in wide use, but aren’t very well known? They’ve been around since about World War II
> **[Ground-effect vehicle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekranoplan)**
>
> A ground-effect vehicle (GEV), also called a wing-in-ground-effect (WIG), ground-effect craft, wingship, flarecraft or ekranoplan (Russian: экранопла́н – "screenglider"), is a vehicle that is able to move over the surface by gaining support from the reactions of the air against the surface of the earth or water. Typically, it is designed to glide over a level surface (usually over the sea) by making use of ground effect, the aerodynamic interaction between the moving wing and the surface below....
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### Author:  [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/16 "2010-01-20T14:28:12Z")
There were plans in 2007 to re-start a commuter hovercraft route (one had run for a couple of years back in the 80s, I think) between Edinburgh and Kirkcaldy across the Firth of Forth (about 12 miles or so).
There was a trial period ([youtube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CNi37A3NjQ)) but the operator wanted the government to pay for the landing facilities at either end rather than assuming the costs themselves, so nothing happened.
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### Author:  [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/17 "2010-01-20T14:29:28Z")
Besides the reasons mentioned here I have always heard that 1) they are extremely loud, and 2) whenever I have seen one in use on land they seem to kick up a LOT of dirt, dust, and debris.
Two more reasons they didn’t gain popularity.
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### Author:  [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/18 "2010-01-20T14:29:58Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Besides “ordinary” hovercraft, why is it that _ekranoplan_s not only aren’t in wide use, but aren’t very well known? They’ve been around since about World War II
>
> [Ground-effect vehicle - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekranoplan)
One of the things I have stuck in my head for no reason that I know; is a Popular Mechanics(or one of that crowd) issue that promissed around 1988 or so that cross-Atlantic airplane service would be replaced by gigantic 3000 passenger GEVs by 2000.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/19 "2010-01-20T14:31:11Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Besides “ordinary” hovercraft, why is it that _ekranoplan_s not only aren’t in wide use, but aren’t very well known? They’ve been around since about World War II
>
> [Ground-effect vehicle - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekranoplan)
[The Russians played around with the idea for a while.](http://davidszondy.com/future/Flight/GEV.htm) And [Boeing is doing the same.](http://davidszondy.com/future/Flight/GEV.htm)
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2010, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-havent-hovercraft-been-commercial-successful/525663/20 "2010-01-20T14:35:57Z")
Let’s be honest: The only reason we’re even paying attention to the idea of the hovercraft is because it’s the closest thing IRL to what we **really** want: Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder. (From a universe where some vehicles float on antigravity fields and are drawn by the functional equivalent of horses.)
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