In this shot, Matt gets some advice from Terry Lobdell beforewe all set out on a cruise.
See Matt's Web Site
Matt's Story So Far....
After taking a ride on my craft, my friend Matt Cook decided to
get one too. After shopping around for a bit by using the Hoverclub
of America's newsletter, we found a craft and trailer for the incredible
price of $900. The craft was built by Bob Fuller, who slightly deviated
from Bob Windt's plans for the Universal
Hovercraft UH-13T, a twin engined
13 foot long craft. Matt's new craft has an 8 HP Briggs lift engine, and
a whopping 95 HP Kawasaki thrust engine! And it's already proving to be a blast!
Most notably, on an early
trip over water, Matt drove the craft over a dam in Yorkville, lL!
Earlier, Matt had heard Terry talk about intentionally driving up and
down some of the local dams so when he suddenly found himself too close
to the dam, instead of backing away, he said to himself "aha, here's my
chance", gave it full throttle and went over.
It was a bit of a
misunderstanding on Matt's part -- the dams Terry had talked about
weren't seven foot high straight drop-offs with boulders strewn at the
bottom.
I was driving behind Matt, and was stunned when I saw him go
over. I zipped over to the river bank, set my craft down, and scrambled down
to the lower side to look for Matt. I was wondering if I would soon be
calling an ambulance. Instead, I saw Matt driving around, and he looked
fine. He came over to the bank and said "Wow, that's fun! I want to do
it again!"
In a testimony to Bob Windt's excellent design, to Bob
Fuller's sturdy construction, and to Matt's amazing luck, the craft moved
far enough forward as it fell through the air to clear the rocks at the
bottom of the dam, made a big splash, and kept on going! No damage or
injuries whatsoever. Everything had gone so smoothly, it took awhile to
convince Matt that this wasn't an ordinary thing to do with a
hovercraft!
Tune in next time for another exciting episode....
