Christopher Cockerell studied engineering at Cambridge. In , he began working on research for Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company. Among his inventions was an aerial direction finder called "the drunken men," which was used in World War II to bring allied airmen safely home. His team at Marconi also produced the equipment that was used to identify all the German radar stations along the northern European coast, which were bombed in time for D-Day. He left Marconi in the early s and moved to Norfolk to manage a marina on the Oulton Broad, which led him to the idea that even a heavy craft could be supported on a cushion of air generated by relatively small thrust.
Eliminating the friction between boat and water would allow such a vessel to move much more rapidly. He ran a vacuum cleaner tube through an empty can of cat food that he had placed in a larger empty coffee can, and when he reversed the switch to blow air into the larger can, the smaller one hovered over the floor of his boatyard's workshop.
In , he built a two-foot-long prototype and he obtained a patent for a vehicle that he described as "neither an airplane, nor a boat, nor a wheeled land craft," which he named a hovercraft. He went on to study engineering at Cambridge, and was one of a number of pupils like David Keith-Lucas Chief Designer of Short Brothers, designer of the Jump Jet and Ian Proctor dinghy designer who became involved in scientific research after university.
Working for Marconi for 15 years, in Cockerell led a team that produced the first radio direction finder with which every British bomber was soon equipped.
This was the invention he was most proud of and one that saved many lives. Turning his attention to boat design, Cockerell took over the Ripplecraft yacht station at Somerleyton where he began developing the idea of using a layer of air below a boat to make it go faster. His famous experiment apparently involved two empty coffee tins and the fan from a vacuum cleaner! Christopher Cockerell - Famous Inventor.
About Inventor Sir Christopher Sydney Cockerell was an English engineer, best known as the inventor of the hovercraft. Hovercraft A hovercraft is a vehicle supported on a cushion of air supplied by a powered fan mounted on the craft. Cockerell was made a CBE in Christopher Cockerell's Other Images. Follow Us on. Chennai Coimbatore Madurai Puducherry Trichy. Jodhpur Vijayawada Visakhapatnam Lucknow Nagpur. Lawrence, literary executor of Thomas Hardy, called him simply "grandfather of the hovercraft".
During the war years Cockerell worked with an elite team at Marconi to develop radar, a development which Churchill believed had a significant effect on the outcome of the Second World War, and Cockerell believed to be one of his greatest achievements.
Whilst at Marconi Cockerell patented 36 of his ideas. Cockerell left Marconi in , and with a legacy left by his beloved wife Margaret's father, he and Margaret were able to purchase a small boatyard in Norfolk. This never seemed to make money and Cockerell's mind turned back to earlier ideas. He decided to use larger models on water. Initial experiments convinced Cockerell that boats could be made to float on a cushion of air, thus reducing the effect of the water drag.
After many trials he successfully designed a craft which proved his ideas were correct. He was not surprised. The modified punt he used had a special pump to blow high pressure air down under and around the rim of the craft. A strong rubber curtain regained most of the air, hence creating lift.
Cockerell had set up a company, Ripplecraft, to develop his ideas further and in he eventually convinced the Ministry of Supply to back his project. He had a hard time trying to convince the military: the Admiralty said it was a plane not a boat; the RAF said it was a boat not a plane; and the Army were "plain not interested".
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