The teacher spends 1,800 hours building the hovercraft of his childhood dreams

On the shores of Lac Bellevue in Alberta, Canada, Robert Tymofichuk approached two women sitting on lawn chairs. He had an unusual question. Did they mind if he launched his hovercraft nearby?

After 1,800 hours of work, he wanted to know if it worked. With their approval, he and his wife Shelley climbed into the cabin and turned on the ignition. The engine, from a 1985 Toyota Celica, roared to life. The vehicle shot onto the lake.

“There is a risk because this thing could slide into the water and sink like a rock,” said Tymofichuk, a teacher at nearby New Myrnam School. A mile offshore he was tempted to turn off the engine. ‘My wife yells at me. She says, ‘Robert, what are you doing, what are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘I gotta see if this thing floats.’ She says, “Not here!”

They were far from shore and the water was deep. He did the smart thing and listened to his wife as he moved to shallower water. He turned off the engine. The hovercraft hovered, bobbing in the sun and gentle wind.

Falling in love with a hovercraft

Despite their very cool name, hovercrafts are not flying cars The Jetsons or Back to the Future: Part II. Instead, think of something that resembles a boat that, instead of floating on water, rides on a cushion of air.

They can travel over the ocean, swampy swamps and sandy beaches. That versatility makes them ideal for the U.S. Navy and Marines, who use them to transport soldiers and equipment from sea to land. For forty years, enormous Mountbatten-class hovercraft ferried passengers and cars across the English Channel.

Tymofichuk fell in love with them as a child in rural Alberta. On his family’s small cattle ranch, when he wasn’t making repairs, he would watch one of the two television channels, where he saw a segment featuring a hovercraft gliding effortlessly over water. He became obsessed. As an eighth-grader, Tymofichuk ordered a set of instructions from an Illinois company called Universal Hovercraft and began what would become a five-year project.

He remembers the day he finished building his first hovercraft in 1986. “It was absolutely beautiful,” he said. His mother watched, camera at the ready. “I started the engine, revved it, and nothing.” Finally he got it running. But over the years he noticed some limitations. It couldn’t carry much cargo or fuel, had no cabin to protect passengers from spray and mud, and couldn’t climb modest slopes. Tymofichuk gave it a overhaul in 2002 after a drought turned Lake Eliza to mud, exposing the massive skulls of long-dead buffalo, intriguing finds for a curious teacher.

The next generation

Years later he decided to build another hovercraft. In 2022 he posted a Youtube videonow with more than 100,000 views, documenting the years-long construction process.

The vehicle is a mix of recycled components, such as the Toyota engine, stripped of excess wires to be as light as possible, and custom parts. He used a discarded fiberglass hull found in an abandoned building. His wife sewed together the 107 segments of the rubber skirt, which traps air under the vehicle. For the joystick, he molded paper mache into its grip and covered it with fiberglass. Finally, he attached the cab from a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee, with heater, ham radio, windshield wipers and seats from a Volkswagen Jetta. The final touches? A glossy coat of bright red paint.

Tymofichuk isn’t the only amateur scientist who has had a hovercraft obsession. He followed in the footsteps of William Bertelsen, who achieved little fame after this publication profiled his ‘car without wheels’ in 1959. Back then, there was no eBay or Amazon to buy parts from, or Reddit users to turn to for advice.

“Without the internet, there’s no way I could have built that second vehicle,” Tymofichuk said. It made it easier for him to find special outfits, like Lone star hovercraft, selling things he couldn’t find in auto parts stores. YouTube, where Tymofichuk has also posted videos of a Do-it-yourself firewood splitter and a kayak with a drill battery motor, is a valuable source of tutorials for hovercraft hobbyists. Timofichuk spoke about it excitedly videos from the Hovercraft Club of Great Britainwhere six to eight races a year are held, where people regularly make dramatic sliding turns and can reach 80 miles per hour.

Tymofichuk’s hovercraft doesn’t go that fast. It travels at a speed of 60 kilometers per hour on the water, where it is relatively easy to control even on rivers with strong currents, and can glide over rocks, logs and other obstacles that extend up to eight inches above the surface.

On ice, because there is so little resistance, a speed of almost 80 kilometers per hour can be reached. However, speeding is not a good idea in that situation. “Imagine a car with the baldest tires in the world,” he said. Now imagine driving that car on ice. On a lake, a hovercraft pilot can switch off the engine in an emergency and the vehicle plows safely into the water. Stopping on ice is a different story. It may require a maneuver straight out of a Fast and furious movie: a full 180 degree turn and then applying force to slow down.

Not that Tymofichuk is stunt driving. His hovercraft is best for leisurely long-distance trips, like up the North Saskatchewan River, where he and his wife camp, prospect for gold and fish for sturgeon in places not easily accessible by truck or boat.

When I last spoke to him, Tymofichuk was spending his summer vacation assisting search and rescue missions in Alberta, where forest fires have devastated thousands of hectares.

During the school year he shares his passion for crafting with students through STEM projects. They built a sustainable greenhouse, converted a school bus into a net-zero tiny house, and restored a fleet of electric golf carts. He received the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence from Justin Trudeau in 2022.

“I try to inspire kids,” he said, “show them that if you want to build a hovercraft, you can. It’s just a matter of determination and willpower.”