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Podcast: Today In History with The Retrospectors
Episode: Is it a Boat? Is it a Plane? No, it's Hovercraft
Description: The Hovercraft SR-N1, piloted by Captain Peter Lamb, sailed from Calais to Dover on 25th July 1959, fifty years to the day after Louis Blériot made the first crossing of the English Channel. It took 2 hours, 3 minutes.
The brainchild of British engineer and inventor Christopher Cockerell, Hovercraft was described as a cross between an aircraft, a boat and a land vehicle, hovering just above the water on a cushion of air. Ultimately over 80 million people and 12 million cars crossed the Channel using Hovercraft.
In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how Cockerell eventually got the...