History

In 1969 Lake Chad was slowly evaporating. The Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) was operating floatplanes on the lake to access over 1000 island and 250,000 people. The ever-changing level of the lake placed limitations on the use of motorboats, Landrovers and MAF’s amphibious Cessna aircraft.

Tim Longley, a maintenance engineer and qualified aircraft designer realised a hovercraft was the ideal solution to negotiate the lake’s marshy edges. Whilst on leave at home in the UK Tim discovered there was no suitable hovercraft commercially available and so set about designing the Missionaire (a hovercraft which subsequently held the record for a light hovercraft circumnavigating the Isle of White!). It was the precursor to the River Rover, a lightweight, simple, bolt together design of hovercraft with a revolutionary control system which allowed precise control of an air cushion vehicle along river systems, up rapids, and across swamps, by banking the vehicle.

Despite never reaching Chad the River Rover design was evaluated by the Royal Navy, and adopted for use by the Joint Services expedition to Nepal in 1978/9 which used hovercraft to provide a mobile clinic – or hoverdoctor service to people living next to the raging torrents and multiple rapids of the Kali Gandaki river as it descended through the Himalayas.

Further expeditions in 1982 to Peru, and 1990 to China further proved the value of hovercraft as a means of delivering medical services, and opening up remote regions by using river systems as hover highways.

In November 1991 HoverAid was created as a charity to support a long-term project in Papua New Guinea where two Mk4 River Rover Hovercraft were deployed to extend the reach of Balimo Hospital in the middle of the extremely remote Western Province.

A further expedition as part of a development programme in Nicaragua saw a River Rover operate of the Rio San Juan, and this was followed by another being delivered to operate on the Zambezi of the Barotze Plain in Zambia.

It is a sad fact that all of these projects have suffered from lack of infrastructure support and funding, and HoverAid nearly called it a day in 1999. However in March 2000 reports of cyclones and severe flooding in Mozambique hit the headlines around the world. HoverAid knew we had a perfectly serviceable hovercraft in Zambia and so we sent word to our supporters in churches up and down the country. In three weeks we raised nearly £100,000 and moved River Rover 403 to the Save River where in collaboration with World Vision, it reached 10,000 people stranded on mud banks who were otherwise cut off without adequate food or shelter.

With further efforts in Malawi in 2001, again during flooding due to cyclones, HoverAid demonstrated that hovercraft could provide crucial access for relief organisations.

With 30 years of cumulative experience under our belts the wheel has turned full circle and once again it is MAF who are operating in an environment that needs the particular capabilities of hovercraft. This time by working in collaboration we believe a project can mature into a long-term programme. We have the vehicles, and the infrastructure available, and with your support HoverAid aims to enable development organisations and missions in Madagascar to change the lives of tens, or even hundreds of thousands of Malagasy people, permanently, and for the better.