Airfix 1/144 BHC SRN4 Hovercraft (09171) - Hoverlloyd Scheme

[Dave-362494]

My build of the Airfix 1/144 SR.N4 (09171) in the Hoverlloyd scheme. Vehicles are Oxford die-cast and figures courtesy of eBay. Both slightly undersize but is only noticeable if you use the kit cars - which I didn't.

I have another one in my stash which will be made as the Seaspeed version.

Dave

[Kenneth ONeill]

Looking at these shots, I think the scale of the kitted cars was decided by a desire to allow them to be loaded in 4 lanes (which seems slightly odd when there were only 4 of them anyway, and IME ferry crews prefer to put part loads down the vessel (aircraft? You do need a pilot's licence to command a commercial hovercraft) centreline).

[Hurricane Boy]

Great job Dave. Very nice to have one half of the roof section clear and the whole roof section removable to show the insides.

I had totally forgotten about this kit. I had to google the SRN4 to reacquaint myself with it.

This was an impressive machine.... four Bristol Proteus shaft turbines (same as a Bristol Britannia) and depending on the variant up to 320 tonnes gross weight, 420 passengers and 60 vehicles at 60 knots ...... wow. Probably expensive to operate, but would have been great on high volume ferry service in northern climates where bodies of water freeze over. Apparently it was looked into putting some of the remaining machines in service across Lake Ontario from Toronto to Rochester, NY in 2015.

This is another case where the vintage kits are sure worth re-issuing.

Cheers,

Tim

[Ratch]

Dave and I both suffered with an ill-fitting roof