Q&A: Alberta teacher builds his own homemade hovercraft

When Robert Tymofichuk, a teacher inMyrnam, Alta., heard the carcass of an unfinished hovercraft was about to be thrown away, he jumped into action.

Myrnam's mayor calledTymofichuk years ago to ask him if he wanted some old hovercraft supplies that werefound inside an abandoned building. The village about 200 kilometres east of Edmonton was going to knock the structure down to build something new there.

More than eight years later, his creation now floats over land, water and ice.

Tymofichukspoke withCBC Radio's Edmonton AMon Wednesday to explain what went in to making this hovercraft hover.

Here is an excerpt from his interview with Tara McCarthy.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

WATCH | Alberta teacher can take functional hovercraft over all sorts of terrain:

Teacher tackles tough terrain in homemade hovercraft

1 month ago

Duration 2:21

Robert Tymofichuk, a teacher and self-proclaimed tinkerer in Myrnam, Alta., has built a hovercraft using mostly spare parts. He joined CBCs Edmonton AM to share his story from when he first found a fibreglass mould in a condemned building to piloting his craft across a lake.

What even inspired you to build this thing?

Well, back when I was a kid you're way too young to remember thisbut we had three TV channels. There was like Channel 2, Channel 4 and Channel 5, and Ithink 2 and 5were the same thing.

And I remember watching, it was a winter scene or in late fall, and this person had a hovercraft. They started up on shore and it lifted up and it took off and it transitioned from land onto some thin ice and onto the water without weight. And I was hooked. It's like, 'Oh my God, I gotta have one of these things.'

Do you have a lot of know-how around building vehicles and these sorts of things? How did you even get this thing started?

Well, I was a farm kid.And then whenyou live a farm life, you're a tinkerer, you're a little bit of a mechanic and electrician and carpenter. [I]just always tinkered as a child. And what I ended up doing the the first time, was I ordered plans in from the States from Cordova, Ill., and that got me on toa five-year project on the first hovercraft. And it was wooden construction and held two people and it worked out really well. Then it led tothis bigger one.

Im sure that must have felt exhilarating to to see it working, andyour design was featured in The New York Times over the weekend. So what's the reaction been like from, you know, your students, but also just other people in Myrnam?

Oh, it's surreal. Like, you know, it started off in June with Popular Science reaching out with with an e-mail.I thought it was spam at first because like, come on, you know, who contacts you from from Popular Science? And they ended up publishing an article and then the [New York] Times reached out and that was... I have a hard time wrapping my head around that one yet, to be honest with you. Like, you know, North America is pretty big.

Yeah, but you're making a hovercraft in Myrnam.

Well it's just something you gotta do over here, you know, like keep yourself entertained [laughs]!