[DaveWall Posts: 11 Status: Offline Minion Dave]

Yes and thanks Nick, yes time goes so quickly when you're enjoying yourself  .  Small correction to my drivel below in which I said 'I regularly meet up with the likes of Mike P.....etc' when in fact I met to write 'Back then I regularly met up with the likes of .....'

[Gaz Posts: 2348 Status: Offline Cruising around Cornwall WWW]

It's all about remembering to remember.

I've got a Sue for remembering, she never forgets when I'm wrong    unfortunately thats usually  :'(

[Nick Flint Posts: 4865 Status: Offline]

Hy Dave, good to hear from you again. 50 years of friendship, Gee time goes so quickly. Perhaps we are enjoying stuff too much?
Alan Bliault is Tech Sec of the British Hovercraft Society, and ive recently joined up there. It's mostly an "august body" of learned chaps and presentations - but they let me in anyway! We've also been email sharing much memory stuff from the early 70s.
Strange, when I struggle with if i locked the door 2 mins ago. 


Hy Gaz!
It's all about remembering to remember.
I don't.
 

[DaveWall Posts: 11 Status: Offline Minion Dave]

Can I add my thanks to John Robertson for sharing this.  Back in the early 70's, when young Mr Flint was just a novice in the HCGB racing scene, I too was a member of the UKHS and therefore like Nick seeing this vid, really did have people who were blasts from my past too.  I regularly meet up with the likes of Mike Pindar, Geoff Harding and Alan's dad ~ his name escapes me, but the fuzz box at the top of my head is saying 'John' or Colin.  Back then a regular attendee of the UKHS meetings was a guy from the NRDC called Malcolm McDonald ~ in fact he first introduced me to Mike and the rest of the then members of the UKHS.  At one of the first meetings I attended, which  was held in the BR Hoverspeed Hoverport at Dover, after the formalities of the meeting and post meeting dinner, at around 11pm the whole party of us were taken on a conducted tour of the entire facility which included being taken out onto a very wet and windy but floodlit concrete slip and then underneath the Princess Margaret Super SRN4 which was fascinating!  I won't drivel on any more, but seeing Alan and this video has brought all of this, flooding back to me. Thanks everybody and take care.

[Gaz Posts: 2348 Status: Offline Cruising around Cornwall WWW]

I was told a recently getting older is the wrong way to look at it    apparently you've just worn the newness off    Either way it sucks!

[Nick Flint Posts: 4865 Status: Offline]

These collaborations are so good and he does seem such a nice, patient and knowledgable chap.
I just need to eat some spinach as hulking skirts about seems to just get heavier each year.
It's either water absorption    or my getting older and more feeble. 
I can't even hold up my FACE nowadays.   

[John Robertson Posts: 5136 Status: Offline WWW]

...Interesting info ref skirt developments basically parallel to "our" current thinking along PU WELDED  materials coated with extra PU sheet, heat welded on the wear points. Really good to hear that such a professional company is thinking along  the same lines as us mere mortals in our tiny island ways! 
Interesting moment when he mentioned "TWO part Urethane paints" for coating the wear areas on PU skirt material. 
Thanks again John.

The film coating idea was the result of joint discussion I had with Bryan about ten years ago.  He (and I) had experimented with various coatings it and were sharing experiences.
I haven't tried the urethane paint yet (truck bed liner is pretty flexible) but I did coat some vinyl with polyurethane varnish which bonded very well (haven't got around to testing it for wear yet though).  Film coating is quite tricky/messy. As he said, Bryan welds successive 50mm strips using a crawler welder,  If an easy/quick/cheap method could be found then it means that the skirt will never wear out (and you could use lighter material for the skirt only coating the wear surfaces).  Urethane is the "right" material for a skirt - expensive but isn't affected by UV and has far better wear than vinyl.

[Nick Flint Posts: 4865 Status: Offline]

Since watching the below Zoom meeting, Ive tracked down and "caught up" with Alan Bliault of the Hovercraft Society in Norway and shared some reminiscences from the 1970s! 

[Nick Flint Posts: 4865 Status: Offline]

MY John, thanks for that!
A long but interesting presentation including many blasts from MY past
Alan Bliault (stayed in each others houses about 1970s) whilst he was designing semi submersibles from memory? He produced (edited) "The hovercraft" magazine around 1970 in which the likes of Osprey Hovercraft advertised. I still have the magazines.
Mike Pinder (of inflatable Pindair fame suppliers to OMAN etc.)
John Carter (with captain garb)
Barrie Palmers ideas and Bryan Phillips who is clearly a VERY patient but lovely man,  but also for sharing so much information and enthusiasm.
Actually making H/C (at a profit) and bearing in mind "coding" for passenger usage is way removed from our needs and aspirations.
Interesting info ref skirt developments basically parallel to "our" current thinking along PU WELDED  materials coated with extra PU sheet, heat welded on the wear points. Really good to hear that such a professional company is thinking along  the same lines as us mere mortals in our tiny island ways! 
Interesting moment when he mentioned "TWO part Urethane paints" for coating the wear areas on PU skirt material. 
Thanks again John.

[John Robertson Posts: 5136 Status: Offline WWW]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqIBiRZxCrI