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Riding high on unique machines
Hovercrafts cruise on to the tourism scene

Elaine Anselmi
Northern News Services
Wednesday, April 20, 2016

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
With break-up coming on the lake and the Yellowknife River well on its way to opening, there's only one type of vehicle track on the five-mile stretch from the mouth of the river to Tartan Rapids: hovercraft.

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Pilot Peter Ormiston worked as an aircraft engineer for more than 20 years before taking the helm of Ry-Lo's hovercraft. - Elaine Anselmi/NNSL photo

Yellowknifer headed out with a group touring with Ry-Lo Express Ltd. last week to test out the new rides in town and hear the case for the amphibious vehicles.

"Right now, we're getting into the season and it happens again in the fall where there's nothing moving on the lake," says president Al Cunningham. "The only thing that's going to be moving out there in the next month or so is our hovercrafts."

Tourism and industry uses

With fishing tours shutting down as the lake thaws, Cunningham hopes to team up with some operators to offer a vehicle out to fishing spots when pike holes start opening up.

The fishing will be great, he says, as long as you can get out there.

Ry-Lo, under Peter Basko, initially ventured into hovercrafting about a year ago with the purchase of the orange 12-person craft many people might have seen out on the bay. Several flaws with the bigger hovercraft rendered it unuseable, so the company moved to using a four-person craft that was purchased as the emergency back-up should anything go wrong with the larger vessel while out on trips, said Cunningham - who stepped up when Basko developed serious health problems.

Before Long John Jamboree, when he said more than 300 people hopped in for a ride, they bought a second vessel for their fleet. The smaller crafts go for around $80,000, Cunningham said.

They've been running the two vessels for a few months now and Cunningham says down the road, he hopes to purchase another larger 10 to 12-person craft which go for around $150,000.

The hovercrafts mark the entry of a new industry in town that, though focused on tourism, Cunningham says could reach into more industrial uses. In terms of freight, the vessels can haul up to 1,000 pounds and are surprisingly fuel-efficient. As an example, Cunningham said he used one hovercraft to bring building supplies out to his cabin - loading it up with around 1,000 pounds and his Ski-Doo with 200 pounds, he says the hovercraft burned through less fuel.

But he says the bread and butter of the hovercrafting industry in town will be tourism. He offers two-hour-long tours up the Yellowknife River, as well as shorter tours on Yellowknife Bay.

On board

Heading under the bridge entering the Yellowknife River, pilot Peter Ormiston slows down and Cunningham points out the limited clearance from the top of the vessel that gains its pitch - or thrust - from a towering back-engine and motor that propels it forward and back. The lift of the crafts - about one foot above ground - come from a second engine that inflates a skirt around the bottom of the vessel and blows air downward.

Steering the hovercraft means manipulating these forces and managing the tendency to drift-hard right or hard-left.

"Whatever you do on the right, you have to be able to do on the left," says pilot Ron Ross. "It's a balance."

To operate the vehicles, Ry-Lo sought out experience, enlisting a roster of aircraft pilots, some retired, some still working.

Ormiston worked as an aircraft engineer for more than 30 years, logging many hours in flight. He says operating a hovercraft isn't that different from a plane, once you get used to the fact that there aren't any pedals and power is your friend - the more power, the more control.

"These are more fun," he adds with a smile.

The hovercrafts get up to between 70 and 80 km/h on snow and around 60 km/h on the water, says Ross - a private pilot since 1982. He boasts that at the Jamboree, he managed a record of 11 donuts out on the ice, with the passengers urging for more.

On Yellowknife Bay, the pilots handily maneuver the two crafts around each other, spinning and kicking up a cloud of snow at their base. In a month, it'll be a spray of water encircling the body of the vessel.

Covering land, ice, snow and water - the fledgling industry keeps moving forward.

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