for crying out loud. The filmmakers didn't need to shoot that,
but they did, because it was the future.
But here's the catch: hovercraft are expensive.
The cross-Channel ones had four gas turbine engines chucking out 13,000 horsepower.
That's an immense amout of fuel, and a lot of noise, particularly at full speed.
Passengers had to stay in their seats for safety,
because hovering on an air cushion, you could feel every wave.
And maintenance costs were huge:
because there weren't many hovercraft, so spare parts were expensive,
and going on saltwater meant they needed constant repair.
Oh, and they could only carry a few dozen cars at a time.
Does any of that sound familiar? A technology of the 1970s future,
faster than anything else, but too expensive, too inefficient,
and too uncomfortable to survive.
It's just like Concorde.
The majority of people who could afford Concorde preferred to spend
twice as long in business-class comfort, rather than a few hours
cramped into a small seat, albeit one that was going very very fast.
Concorde used a huge amount of fuel, its maintenance was expensive,
and after one of the planes crashed in 2003,
the airlines decided that it wasn't worth keeping them running any more.
Now, it wasn't a disaster that ended the big cross-Channel hovercraft runs.
It was the Channel Tunnel providing a more comfortable option,
even if, end-to-end, it did take just a little bit longer.
But it was still a signal, that perhaps,
the dreams of the 1970s did get a little bit out of hand.
In a world where fuel was cheap and the future, for those who could afford it,
was cool, fast, and slightly uncomfortable,
hovercraft and Concorde fit in perfectly.
But for the 21st Century, with lots of people wanting to travel cheaply:
we left all that behind.
Apart from here, in one little bit of southern England.