17 Facts About Christopher Cockerell

Sir Christopher Sydney Cockerell was an English engineer, best known as the inventor of the hovercraft.

Christopher Cockerell's mother was the illustrator and designer Florence Kingsford Cockerell.

Christopher Cockerell matriculated at Peterhouse, Cambridge to read mechanical engineering.

Christopher Cockerell later returned to Cambridge to study radio and electronics.

The firm made little money, and Christopher Cockerell began to think how the craft could be made to go faster.

Christopher Cockerell was led to earlier work by the Thornycroft company, in which a small vessel had been partially raised out of the water by a small engine.

Christopher Cockerell's theory was that instead of just pumping air under the craft, as Thornycroft had, if the air were to be instead channelled to form a narrow jet around the perimeter of the craft, the moving air would form a momentum curtain, a wall of moving air that would limit the amount of air that would leak out.

Christopher Cockerell tested his theories using a vacuum cleaner and two tin cans.

Christopher Cockerell's hypothesis was found to have potential, but the idea took some years to develop, and he was forced to sell personal possessions to finance his research.

Christopher Cockerell had found it impossible to interest the private sector in developing his idea, as both the aircraft and the shipbuilding industries saw it as lying outside their core business.

Christopher Cockerell therefore approached the British Government with a view to interesting them in possible defence applications.

Christopher Cockerell was the Technical Director and the company controlled the patents which it used to license several private sector firms to manufacture craft under the registered trademark of Hovercraft.

Christopher Cockerell received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1971.

In later life, Christopher Cockerell developed many other improvements to the hovercraft, and invented various other applications for the air cushion principle, such as the hovertrain.

Christopher Cockerell attended many hovercraft related events, such as the unveiling of many hoverports across the United Kingdom.

N4 hovercraft GH2008 Sir Christopher Cockerell was named after its inventor.

Christopher Cockerell's workshop, including his left-handed lathe, was given to the Lowestoft Maritime Museum on his death in 1999 where it was reassembled and is on show to the public.