Crash Course....

How to crash a Viper...

(Gee I really didn't want to do THAT!)

    Moving cross country is an ugly thing. It's even worse when you have to move into a temporary apartment first, and after one month's time move again into a new house. I guess "ugly" isn't really a good description..

Traumatic... That's the word I'm looking for!

    Traumatic... is a good description of trying to find work in a new area of the country too. We moved to follow my wife's job so at least she's working!When money making opportunities arrive I try to accept. When money making opportunities that have the potential for FUN... well you get the picture- Money + FUN never hurt anyone.... Until Dixon's Law steps in!

    In  May (2003)  I received an email from Nick Jokay. Nick is a Geologist that studies rivers for a living. He does work for various government agencies around the country "surveying" rivers. Nick was trying to convince his boss to allow the use of a hovercraft to be used as a "tool" for surveying inaccessible rivers. Nick asked if I might be interested in supplying the hovercraft and being the official "Hovercraft Pilot"- if his boss gave him the OK. What could I say? YES!!!

    Over the next month and a half the project was finally accepted, and after a couple of false starts the project was officially slated to start the week of July 20th. We were to survey the "Little Blue River" which flows from Nebraska into Kansas for the USDA- most of the river  had never been surveyed. We really didn't know what to expect as far as river conditions. The reason for the survey was that a flood had caused damage to the river basin and the USDA was looking for repair options. Nick and his student partner- Micah -  drove up from Mississippi and spent the first night at my house in Missouri.

Day 1

    We left the house at 7:00 AM and drove for two hours into Kansas. We stopped briefly to check into our Hotel.    

    Kansas is kind of an odd State... the river water is privately owned. In other words if you don't own property on the river you are officially "trespassing" - and they mean it! We, of course, were immune to the trespassing laws since we were working for the USDA. There are no public access points on a "private" river so we had to deal with local land owners for access onto the river. It was about 10:00 am when Nick called the access landowner. Unfortunately we were at the landowners mercy, and his schedule didn't even come close to ours... By 12:30 the landowner had finished lunch with his two Grand daughters and was ready to show Nick his access point. Micah and I parked in the shade and waited for Nick to return. The original "plan" was to use the landowner's access point as the take out at the end of the day- we didn't have a launch point yet and like I mentioned it was already 12:30 in the afternoon. We were scheduled to survey anestimated 30 miles of river this day.

    Nick arrived back in the parking lot about an hour later. The access wasn't very good and it was decided that we should all go and check it out... Not very good? What Access? All I could see was a 45 degree dirt slope towards the water with a four foot drop off- into a deep swirling eddy with logs on both sides. This was supposed to be the take out point? It wasn't easy climbing up the slope on foot! Nick suggested tying the hovercraft to a truck and dragging it up out of the water and then up the hill.... Ummmmmmm... I don't think so.....

LFH (Launch From Hell!)

    I suggested that the ONLY way to use this access point was to use it as the "launch"- still a risky situation, but possible if we were careful. I drove the Viper off of the trailer and towards the river. I parked at the top of the "LFH" (Launch From Hell) that led to the water, and shut the craft down. Micah grabbed his fishing pole and commenced "guarding" the Viper and other equipment while Nick and I drove out to find a place to get the craft out of the water. After numerous stops  we finally decided to extend the trip a few miles into a public lake and use a "real" ramp to get the hovercraft back on it's trailer.  I had loaded my GPS with all of the high resolution maps we would need for our trip, and I designated a "waypoint" while standing at the end of the ramp near the water. (If this was a Steven King novel the sky would turn ominous with a crack of thunder and bolt of lightning!) We parked my truck and the hovercraft trailer near the ramp and drove back to the launch point in Nick's truck.

    We arrived at the launch point at 4:00 PM.... I had my reservations about getting such a late start, but I was getting paid for this so I put my concerns behind me and prepared the Viper for flight. Pushing the limits of stupidity I flew the Viper to the precipice and slowly over the edge- Once over the edge there was no possible return... Nick and Micah guided the back while I walked along the side guiding the front and operating the throttle. Little bursts of throttle produced lurid uncontrolled slides of 4 to 5 feet. We finally worked the craft to the edge of the four foot drop off and I got in...

    It's really an odd sensation looking straight down into the water from 4 feet above while seated in a hovercraft. What's the best way to get into the water??? Slowly? Just nose it in and hope it doesn't take on much water? Accelerate? There's only 4 feet to the water.. How fast can you go in just 4 feet? At least there would be air in the cushion to maybe hold the nose out of the water.... NOT!!!

    Ever see a Kayaker do an "Ender"? The kayaker will purposely accelerate the nose of the kayak straight down into the water... The weight of the kayaker, kayak, and the propulsion carries the kayak down until the buoyancy of the craft is greater than the force dragging it down... The water releases it's grip suddenly- sending the kayak skyward- back end first. Replace the kayak with a 450 pound 15 foot long hovercraft... pretty spectacular... Wish I had video...

    So.... There I was....

    Floating in a big recirculating eddy with drowned engine and a cockpit filled to the top of the seat with water.... (Finally tested the Viper flotation- It works!) I had the foresight when I was building the Viper to add an automatic bilge pump in the engine compartment. The pump clicked on and drained the water from the engine area. I tried the starter and the Rotax fired on one cylinder- better than nothing. I chugged over to the shoreline and got a bucket from Nick. I started bailing the water out of the passenger compartment (the passenger compartment is separate from the engine compartment and doesn't drain via the bilge pump). I let the Rotax idle and the second cylinder finally came back to life. With  the engine running properly I gave up on bailing and flew across to a large sandbar and parked uphill. I pulled all the drain plugs and after 20 minutes all the water drained out.

    All Righty Then!

    It's 4:45 PM and we have 35 miles to go on the GPS (As the "Crow flies" type miles- not curvy river miles), and there is no way to get the hovercraft back out of the water here. We load up and head down river. What a beautiful river it is! Being on the river erases the "character building" experiences of the last hour and it's fun flying around the log jams and pristine sand bars. We stop every 2 miles for Nick and Micah to do their survey which takes them about 20 minutes to complete. I relax and double check the skirts at each stop to make sure all is well with the craft.

Survey Crew Hard at Work

    At 6:30 PM I'm starting to get nervous about getting caught in the dark on an unknown river. The miles on the GPS aren't coming down very fast. I told Nick my concerns and he decided to survey the river "on the fly" while taking pictures, GPS coordinates, and a written log. I cruise as fast as I can, but there are a LOT of obstacles to avoid. Luckily we are going down river and it all flows into a recreational lake. This means the farther we go the wider and less congested the river becomes. There's STILL a lot of miles to go, and it's starting to get dark... Lightning is striking out to the West and South.. Rumbles of thunder can be heard over the motor (... must have been really LOUD thunder!) and then it hit.....  THE SWARM. UGH! BUGS! MILLIONS OF BUGS! SPLATTING ON EVERYTHING!

Viper- Waiting for passengers

    I can barely see through my glasses. Bug "juice" has covered the entire craft. Nick and Micah look like they are in Arabia during a sand storm. We finally fly into the BFZ (bug free zone) and straight into a major thunder storm. At least it washed off some of the bugs. It's dark now.  I'm able to make out the river banks through the darkness only during lightning strikes. Luckily I always cruise with a GPS! With the river programmed into the GPS I zoomed into our location and set it up so the direction of travel was always at the top of the screen. As the river wound around and separated into numerous channels I was navigating via GPS- luckily the river is wide and deep- There's no obstructions out in the middle of the river. The GPS displays 54 actual miles traveled, and the landing ramp waypoint appears on the screen. We flew up the ramp to the waiting truck and trailer. Forty five minutes later we are in the truck heading to dinner- it's 10:30 PM.

    I guess I've been really spoiled by living near big cities like Chicago. You can find food anytime of day or night. Not so in Small Town, USA. Nothing!, Zip!, Nadda!, No Food For You!

   We finally happen across a gas station on the way back to the hotel that is closing for the night. They have a Pizza that someone ordered a couple of hours ago and never picked up... They'll sell it to us for a "discount"... Dinner is served in the "Jokay Suite" at the hotel. After downing a bottle of Pepcid AC and a shower I'm in bed at 12:30 AM.

Day 2

    I'm up by 7:00 AM- I don't sleep very well in Hotels. I went out to check the Viper. It was covered with mud, and bug juice, but basically in good shape. I checked all the fluids on the motor and added some more oil to the injection tank. I also checked for all the equipment that we hastily stashed in the craft and trailer during our hasty loading of the craft during the thunderstorm last night.... Where is the kill switch tether?? Ugh... I have a spare, but I hate loosing anything, and they aren't that easy to come by.

    Nick came out and said they had a couple hours of paperwork to do before they would be ready to leave the hotel. I decided to drive back to the take out ramp and search for the missing kill switch tether. Futility wins again, and the tether wasn't found. Nick and Micah are almost ready to leave by the time I get back. We finally left the hotel and stopped for gas. At the gas station we threw a couple buckets of water on the muddy Viper to wash it off a bit, and then continued on our way.

    Ugh... we were headed back to the LFH from the day before- only this time we would be going up river into Nebraska. Nebraska is a little easier to deal with because the water is publicly owned. Today's trip was supposed to be shorter.. it was 10:30 AM and was already looking like a repeat of the day before. We weren't even at the LFH yet and the danger aspect of going up river had me considering pulling the plug... there's that "getting paid" thing again.... Common sense goes right out the window...

    Why is going up a river more dangerous? Water flows downhill making the river. The water takes, or attempts to take everything in it's path with it. Through the years as the water takes more and more stuff with it... it naturally gets wider the farther the river travels. You can actually step across the Mississippi River where it starts at Lake Itasca in Northern Minnesota. So going up river makes it increasingly narrower.

     Remember that part about "attempting to take everything in it's path" with it? Trees get ripped out of the ground during flooding and float down the river to a point where they lodge up against the shore, or stick into the ground. Log jams are the result- usually around tight turns or in shallow spots.

    Just looking at a log jam you might not notice... but all the logs and branches are aimed downstream, or straight at you if your flying your hovercraft up stream... The same log you bumped over and that did no damage to your craft going downstream might very well tear your skirts off (or worse!) going upstream. You need to be really careful!

    We arrived at the LFH and had the craft off of the trailer and parked in the "official" hovercraft parking space at the top. Micah assumed his former position of "protector of the craft" while Nick and I went to the new take out point up stream. This place was easier to find. There was a pretty big sand dune up to the parking area. Pretty steep, but it should not be a problem. GPS gymnastics ensued, and with the new waypoint sealed up in it's little electronic brain we left my truck and trailer and headed back to LFH with Nick's truck.

    At 3:00 PM after "death sliding" down the sixty feet of LFH I was once again perched at the top of the four foot drop-off and staring into the deep eddy current..... If at first you don't succeed- Push the limits of stupidity a second time!

    This time I just did a kind of ugly, no throttle, "belly flop" kind of thing into the eddy. I didn't take on much water. Another late start and the GPS said we have 25 (line of sight) miles to go. I looked at the map before we left and the river was MUCH straighter than the section that we had done the previous day.

  The "on the fly" method of surveying the river had worked out well. Nick decided to use it from the very beginning today. We stopped only to refill the gas tanks, rest, or to better survey an area of interest. It was a fun river to cruise on, but it was getting more and more treacherous the farther we went.

Sand Bar Motocross- Hovercraft Style!

    We had an unscheduled stop when I snagged a couple of skirts in a log jam. I had to replace a few zip ties while parked on a sandbar. I walked the river once my repairs were done and there was no way through the log jam via the water. I did a little sandbar motocross for about a quarter mile and found a place to re-enter the river. Unfortunately it was getting late again.... and this time we were flying West/ Northwest into the setting sun. I had to slow down because of all the obstacles.... Now I had to slow down even more because of the glare. The glare was so bad that I was driving with one hand and using my other hand to shield my eyes.

Everybody SMILE- It's about to get Ugly!

    I was loosing concentration and going blind at the same time. The "smart" thing to have done would have been to stop. The GPS still showed 12 miles and this section of river was too dangerous to fly at night even with the GPS. Pilots call this "Gotta-get-home-itis", and it can really turn around and bite you.

    I was dreaming of polarized sunglasses while doing 14 mph when I caught sight of it 20 feet ahead of us right in the middle of the glare. There it was in all it's glory.... One single log sticking up out of the water 14 inches, pointing straight at us.

    I grabbed a handful of throttle and swerved to miss. I thought I had somehow managed to miss it when I felt a CRUNCH on the left side of the craft. There was a lot more stuff to avoid so I had to concentrate on flying and maneuvering until I found a sandbar to land on. I knew I had damage, but I never expected what I saw!

    I looked back towards Nick and Micah and saw that they were covered with chunks of blue plywood. I looked at the left side of the cockpit and there was a gapping hole. I could look through the hole, through the air plenum, and see the ground outside the craft. "Temper Tantrum"... That's how Nick described it in a preview of an article for the Hovercraft Club of America's "Hovernews"..... More like a total meltdown....  I took a personal "time out" and banished myself from the others until I could "behave" myself.    

Bottom Hull Damage

Cockpit Damage

Traumatic... That's the word I'm looking for!

    I know better! Or at least I should  have known better... Either way my decisions, or lack of, had me sitting on a sandbar with two passengers watching the sun slowly set while sitting in the middle of nowhere feverishly attempting to repair my damaged hovercraft. Darkness was coming fast, and we had at least 10 miles of uncharted river to complete.

Repairs in the middle of "Nowhere"

    I re-attached the skirts to the craft. Oddly enough only one skirt needed to be replaced. The other skirts just needed to be re-attached with wire ties. There was nothing I could do about the damage on the bottom side of the craft, and as long as the skirts were in place the extra volume of air in the area of the hole would simply be re-distributed as part of the cushion volume. The problem was the hole on the inside wall of the cockpit which also forms the wall of the plenum- which carries air around the perimeter of the craft and feeds the cushion. The craft actually "flew" with the gaping hole. How well it flew was another story, and we were flying in an area that needs a lot of technical maneuvering- the hole  needed to be patched.

    I didn't have much to work with, but I figured out a plan...  I drilled holes through the side wall around the hole using a small Phillips head screwdriver. Using a spare skirt as a "patch" I placed it inside the duct and made 2 holes through it with the screwdriver. I used a wire tie through the sidewall, through the skirt, back through the 2nd hole in the skirt, and back through the sidewall- then zipped it together. The end result was an airproof patch on the inside of the plenum- Almost like the cloth panels on the inside of Owen Ellis' Revtech Hovercrafts. MacGyver would have been proud!

Makeshift "Patch"

    The Viper flew completely normal. We got to the take out and had the hovercraft back on the trailer just as the darkness was upon us. We packed up and headed back to recover Nick's truck back at the LFH. We decided to eat dinner on the way back... Pizza... I looked at the patch under the lights near the tavern. There was new stress cracking in the plywood to either side of the patch. I notified Nick that the Viper was done flying until repaired. We recovered Nicks truck after dinner and instead of heading to the hotel I headed for home.... 3:30 AM I got to sleep in my own bed!

Patch with new stress cracking

    In retrospect it was an interesting experience and I would be happy to do it again- in a commercial craft. Certainly things could have been changed to make it better, but 20/20 hindsight works for pretty much everything. Certainly the decisions I made as the pilot could have been better- we should not have launched either day as late as it was.

    My biggest concern is the fragility of the craft itself- we really didn't seem to hit all that hard..... hindsight again.... who knows? If we were in a commercial craft- say an Air Commander- would it have turned out differently? Maybe a craft with a front lift engine wouldn't have made it past the first day's launch? Don't know, and I guess it really doesn't matter. On the drive home I already formulated a plan on how I was going to repair the Viper.... That's the next story!

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