On the banks of Lac Bellevue in Alberta, Canada, Robert Tymofichuk approached two women on lawn chairs. He had an unusual question. Did they mind if he launched his hovercraft nearby?
After 1,800 hours of work, he was eager to know if it worked. With their approval, he climbed into the cabin with his wife, Shelley, and flipped the ignition switch. The engine, scavenged from a 1985 Toyota Celica, roared to life. The vehicle shot onto the lake.
“There’s a risk because this thing could zip into the water and sink like a rock,” said Tymofichuk, a teacher at nearby New Myrnam School. A mile from shore, he was tempted to cut the engine. “My wife’s screaming at me. She says, ‘Robert, what are you doing, what are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘I got to see if this thing floats.’ She says, ‘Not here!”
They were far from shore and the water was deep. He did the smart thing and listened to his wife, moving to shallower waters. He cut the engine. The hovercraft floated, bobbing in the sunshine and gentle wind.
Falling In Love With Hovercraft
Despite their very cool name, hovercraft aren’t flying cars a la The Jetsons or Back to the Future: Part II. Instead, think of something that looks like a boat that, instead of floating on water, rides on a cushion of air.
They’re able to travel over ocean, soggy marshes, and sandy beaches. That versatility makes them ideal for the U.S. Navy and Marines, who use them to transport soldiers and equipment from sea to land. For 40 years, massive Mountbatten-class hovercraft took passengers and automobiles across the English Channel.
Tymofichuk fell in love with them as a child in rural Alberta. On his family’s small cattle farm, when he wasn’t fixing things, he’d watch one of two television channels, where he saw a segment featuring a hovercraft effortlessly coasting over water. He became obsessed. As an eighth-grader, Tymofichuk ordered a set of instructions from an Illinois company called Universal Hovercraft and began what would become a five-year project.
He remembers the day he finished building his first hovercraft in 1986. “It was absolutely gorgeous,” he said. His mom looked on, camera ready. “I started up the engine, revved it up, and nothing.” He eventually got it running. But over the years, he noticed a few limitations. It couldn’t carry much cargo or fuel, didn’t have a cab to protect passengers from spraying water and mud, and couldn’t go up modest inclines. Tymofichuk gave it a tune-up in 2002 after a drought turned Lake Eliza into mud, exposing the massive skulls of long-dead buffalo, intriguing finds for a curious teacher.
The next generation
Years later, he decided to build another hovercraft. In 2022, he posted a YouTube video, now with more 100,000 views, documenting the year-long construction process.
The vehicle is a mishmash of repurposed components, such as the Toyota engine, pruned of excess wires to be as light as possible, and custom-made parts. He used a discarded fiberglass hull found in an abandoned building. His wife sewed together the 107 segments of the rubber skirt, which traps air underneath the vehicle. For the joystick, he molded paper mache to his grip and covered it in fiberglass. Finally, he attached the cab of a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee, adding a heater, ham radio, windshield wipers, and seats from a Volkswagen Jetta. The final touch? A glossy coat of bright red paint.
Tymofichuk isn’t the only amateur scientist who’s had a hovercraft obsession. He followed in the footsteps of William Bertelsen, who rose to minor fame after this very publication profiled his “car without wheels” in 1959. Back then, there was no eBay or Amazon to source parts from or Reddit users to turn to for advice.
“If it wasn’t for the internet, there’s no way I could have built that second craft,” Tymofichuk said. It made it easier for him to find specialty outfits, such as Lone Star Hovercraft, that sell things he couldn’t find in auto parts stores. YouTube, where Tymofichuk has also posted videos of a DIY firewood splitter and a kayak with a drill battery motor, is a valuable source of tutorials for hovercraft hobbyists. Tymofichuk spoke excitedly about videos from the Hovercraft Club of Great Britain, which holds six to eight races a year, during which people regularly perform dramatic sliding turns and can reach 80 miles per hour.
Tymofichuk’s hovercraft doesn’t go quite that fast. It cruises at 38 miles per hour on water, where it’s relatively easy to steer, even on rivers with strong currents, and can glide over rocks, logs, and other obstacles that extend up to eight inches past the surface.
Over ice, because there is so little drag, it can hit nearly 50 miles per hour. However, speeding in that situation isn’t a good idea. “Imagine a car with the baldest tires in the entire world,” he said. Now imagine driving that car on ice. On a lake, in an emergency, a hovercraft pilot can cut the engine and the vehicle will plow safely into the water. Stopping on ice is a different story. It can require a maneuver straight out of a Fast and Furious movie: a full 180-degree spin and then applying thrust to decelerate.
Not that Tymofichuk is out there stunt driving. His hovercraft is best for leisurely, long-distance trips, like up the North Saskatchewan River, where he and his wife camp, prospect for gold, and fish for sturgeon in spots not easily reached by truck or boat.
When I talked to him last, Tymofichuk was spending his summer break assisting with search-and-rescue missions in Alberta, where wildfires have ravaged thousands of acres.
During the school year, he shares his passion for tinkering with students through STEM projects. They’ve built a sustainable greenhouse, turned a school bus into a net-zero tiny home, and restored a fleet of electric golf carts. He was given the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2022 from Justin Trudeau.
“I try to inspire kids,” he said, “show them that if you want to build a hovercraft, you can do it, too. It’s just a matter of determination and willpower.”
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