Sir Christopher Cockerell

Christopher Cockerell of the United Kingdom is now acknowledged to have been the father of the Hovercraft, as the air-cushion vehicle is popularly known. During World War II he had been closely connected with the development of radar and other radio aids and had retired into…

…was invented by English engineer Christopher Cockerell; it crossed the Channel for the first time on July 25, 1959. Ten years later Cockerell was knighted for his accomplishment. By that time the last and largest of the series, the SR.N4, also called the Mountbatten class, had begun to ply the…