Sixty years of hovercraft.

1960s

Barry Palmer and the first craft

Our hovercraft story begins with Barry Palmer. Born in November 1937, Palmer is an American aeronautical engineer (UC Berkeley, 1961), inventor, builder and pilot. In October 1961, near Latrobe, east of Sacramento, he built and flew the first flexible wing hang glider, based on the Rogallo wing, for $10.89 in materials. In March 1967 he flew the Paraplane, the first true weight shift powered ultralight trike, and followed it with a second trike, the Skyhook.

He was also one of very few people experimenting with air cushion vehicles in the 1960s. His first significant craft, the Smuggler, was built around 1968. Living in Florida at the time, he was building airboats as well.

Read more about Barry Palmer on Wikipedia

A VW powered craft in the Florida Everglades, 1965.

An Air Kinetics airboat Palmer built in Florida.

The Skyhook (N4411), Palmer’s second trike, with a 17 hp JLO engine.

One of Palmer’s flexible wing hang gliders, early 1960s.

1970s

Boeing, and the Fantastic 1

Palmer moved to Seattle around 1974 to work on a hydrofoil project at Boeing. He had already worked on programs from the lunar lander to rocket motors for the space program, and he kept refining his hovercraft, or SEVs (surface effect vehicles), as he preferred to call them.

In the mid 1970s he started Palmer Aero Systems to sell hovercraft plans. The first set was for the Fantastic 1, a one person craft powered by an 11 hp single cylinder Briggs & Stratton. Barry used the prototype to commute to Boeing. The Fan 1 caught on, and hundreds were built around the world by people of all ages.

The Fantastic 1 prototype with Barry Palmer at the controls, 1975.

A Fan 1 finished by a home builder from the plans.

A Fantastic 1 climbing a gravel bank in Renton, Washington.

1980s

The Red and Yellow Machines

In the 1980s Palmer moved on to larger craft built from molded fiberglass: 16 by 14 foot and 18 by 14 foot designs powered by air cooled VW engines, known simply as the Red and Yellow Machines. They taught a lot, including the need for more cockpit space. They also had a manually folding skirt width extension, which eventually became the automatic extension system we use today.

The stable skirt allowed rough water running with very little spray. Where many builders simply copied British designs, Palmer’s craft were much quieter, thanks to more efficient lift and thrust systems and low skirt drag. Home builders got a simple build from common materials. The one exception was the laminated aircraft plywood fans and propellers, which Barry made by hand.

The Yellow Machine, 1985.

The Red Machine.

Barry’s hand laminated wood propeller, lift fan and drive parts, early 1980s.

1984 to 1989

Bryan Phillips builds his first hovercraft

Bryan Phillips built his first hovercraft, the Hover Platform, in 1984 with Tadd Lisman, a friend since fifth grade. The two kept at it through high school, and from 1984 to 1989 they built a UH-10T together. It was the start of more than forty years of building hovercraft.

Bryan Phillips with the Hover Platform, his first hovercraft, 1984.

Building the UH-10T with Tadd Lisman, August 1987.

The UH-10T on the water, March 1989.

Early 1990s

SEVTec, the Vanguard, and Bryan Phillips

In the early 1990s the company, Palmer Aero Systems, was renamed SEVTec, for Surface Effect Vehicle Technology, and began developing the Vanguard: an all composite craft built around the new OHV V-twin industrial engines just reaching the market. This is where Bryan’s path joins Barry’s. The prototype Vanguard was a 12.5 foot craft built before any plans were drawn. In 1993 Bryan built the first Vanguard 14 from the plans that followed, and took it all over Puget Sound, up into the Canadian Gulf Islands and to the far end of Indian Arm near Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Vanguard became even more popular than the Fan 1, with more than 500 built worldwide. Modern engines, better hull materials, improved propellers and fans, and decades of refinement across more than 40 prototypes led to a series of five more new craft.

Early Vanguards proved themselves on long trips. The prototype, with just 16 hp, and the first 18 hp, 14 foot unit made a 500 mile round trip north from Monroe, Washington to Comox, British Columbia, through the San Juan Islands. Another run into Canada stopped at the Canadian Coast Guard hovercraft base near Vancouver. The one of a kind skirt gives these craft real stability and good sea keeping in open water.

Two Vanguard 14s on the Skykomish River near Monroe, Washington, 1994.

Barry Palmer with a Vanguard, nose lifted.

Vanguard prototypes lined up by the river.

A Vanguard 14 in the rapids, 1993.

Coming ashore up a grass bank, 1993.

The first Vanguard 14 in the rapids.

The first Vanguard 14 jumping a sand bar on the Columbia River.

Bryan Phillips and Barry Palmer with a Canadian Coast Guard SR.N6 near Vancouver, 1994.

1995 to 1998

The Explorer 20, a rescue craft, and the run to Alaska

In 1995, while attending engineering school in Bellingham, Washington, Bryan began building the Sevtec designed Explorer 20 prototype. It would not be finished until early 1998, because in 1997 Barry and Bryan built the first Prospector SAR. Its hull and assembly were done at the new Amphibious Marine facility at Campbell Lake, for Fall City Fire and Rescue, near Seattle, which needed a craft for flood rescue. It served the department for 20 years.

Testing of the new Explorer 20 was well under way in spring 1998 when John Carter floated the idea of running the Inside Passage to Alaska. After 70 hours of local running and trip planning, Barry, Bryan and John left Anacortes heading north in June. The trip covered 1,400 miles to Juneau.

John chronicled the trip in 1998 on his site, hovernut.com.

Read the full story of the 1998 run

Read the North to Alaska Adventure

The Prospector SAR, built for Fall City Fire and Rescue.

The Prospector SAR with the Fall City Fire and Rescue crew.

The Explorer 20 prototype at the Taku Glacier near Juneau, on the 1998 run to Alaska.

Bryan Phillips running the Explorer 20 near Deception Pass, Washington.

An Explorer and a Vanguard near Fidalgo Island, Washington.

1999 to 2005

The molded Vanguard, and a shop of our own

In 1999 we started tooling for a molded version of the Vanguard 14. That model carried the company for many years, with more than 45 built. As larger EFI engines became available, customers began asking for full cabin heat, windshields, more payload and better headwind performance.

In 2005 the shop had to move, and nothing suitable existed locally, so we built one. Bill, Angela and Bryan Phillips did most of the work themselves. The new shop was designed for composite construction, with a heated floor, good ventilation and plenty of light.

The shop Bill, Angela and Bryan built in 2005.

2009

The Explorer 22 TDi goes diesel

By 2009 many Vanguards had come out of the new shop when an Alaskan client called asking for an Explorer with diesel power, a cabin and, of course, heat. Finding a diesel that suited a hovercraft this size was hard. The two candidates were Steyr and Volkswagen Industrial. Steyr was not practical at the time, so we chose the 84 hp 2.0 liter VW industrial diesel, a little heavier than the Subaru gas engines on earlier models.

The craft grew to 22 by 11 feet to suit the larger engine, and it was the first we designed in 3D CAD, using Rhino 3D and SolidWorks. We built four Explorer 22 TDi craft before VW pulled that engine from the US market.

The first Explorer 22 TDi, built in 2010 with a green top, ran in Wrangell, Alaska and the Stikine River delta. It came back to our shop in 2023 for a complete refit and now provides service in Gates of the Arctic National Park.

Bryan and Angela Phillips in the first Explorer 22 TDi, the craft that went to Wrangell, Alaska.

The first Explorer 22 TDi under the Harstine Island bridge, Puget Sound.

Bryan Phillips with the first Explorer 22 TDi near Steamboat Island, Washington.

An Explorer 22 TDi near the Stikine River, on a trip to Shakes Lake Glacier.

2014

The Explorer 24

In 2014 we started our most ambitious project yet: the Explorer 24, an all composite, vacuum infusion molded craft with a full hard top, seating for twelve, gull wing doors and a new 144 hp Steyr marine diesel. Today’s craft carry the 164 hp version. The same year we added a 6 by 10 foot CNC router, so parts designed in 3D could be cut faster and more precisely. CAD/CAM opened up shapes and ideas that were not possible before.

Vacuum resin infusion gives a better laminate, more design freedom with cored construction, and less weight. A small crew can lay up large, complex parts without racing the resin, because it goes in last, after all the carbon, glass fiber and cores are in place. It is cleaner work too, since the resin and its smell stay under the vacuum bag. It takes a real investment in tools, tooling and know how. The result is a hull far lighter, stronger and more durable than welded aluminum.

Loading the Explorer 24 deck mold before infusion.

The deck under vacuum, infusion complete.

Steyr marine diesel installed in an Explorer 24.

The Explorer 24 cabin.

An Explorer 24 under way on the tide flats.

2016 to 2019

Glacier tours, new clients, and the Seychelles

The first three Explorer 24 craft were completed in 2016 and delivered to Allen Marine, a cruise line service company in Juneau, Alaska. They carried cruise ship passengers out to the Taku Glacier.

Later builds went to more commercial clients in Canada and in Portland, Maine. In 2019 another Explorer 24 was delivered to a client in the Seychelles, carrying tourists to remote parts of the islands. An Anchorage based tour company also ran Explorer 24 hovercraft tours in Alaska.

An Explorer 24 at the face of the Taku Glacier, Juneau.

Allen Marine Explorer 24s on the Taku Glacier flats, seen from the cabin of a third.

Below the peaks on the way to the glacier.

Tour passengers with an Explorer 24 in Alaska.

Two Explorer 24s at work in Canada.

Crew and passengers in Canada.

Portland, Maine, from the air.

A beach stop in Portland, Maine.

On a remote beach in the Seychelles.

At the dock in the Seychelles, 2019.