Although Saturday morning Feb. 26 starts with frost on the ground, the weatherman has promised our Atlanta residents temperatures in the 60s by mid-day. Fred Ewing, Jeff Wilbanks and Louis Bondurant meet at Cherokee Mills ramp on Lake Allatoona with hopes that this promise of quality winter weather will be fulfilled. They are greeted at the ramp by fellow hover enthusiasts Mark Clark and his son Ryan.

After a bit of last minute maintenance, unloading and socializing they finally launch and head north up the lake toward the Etowah River. While Knox Bridge is only 4 miles away this seems a long and cold trudge and only Fred Ewing has the luxury of a windscreen in front of him. Don't know what the official high temp of the day, but another 10 degrees would have been welcomed with open arms.

A couple of miles above Knox Bridge a pause is taken for leg stretching and photos. At this point the river is down to a width of less than 75', but there is still no evidence of current. There is however, a very convenient mild sloping shore to park upon. As it turns out is was fortunate we stopped when we did as the next good pull out point turned out to be almost 15 miles upstream.

Continuing on upstream we see hawks, cranes, heron and even a dear on the shoreline. Jeff claims to have spotted a Sasquatch but everyone else must have been looking the other way when he passed by. In the area of Canton, GA we encounter a log jam some 8' tall on the upstream side of a large bridge. This had the definite potential to serve as the end of the trail, but we were lucky enough to find a small section near the left bank of the river that was just wide enough to squeeze through.

Another 20 minutes upstream we are quite ready for a break to warm up and eat lunch. Finally a small peninsula is noted on the right that offered up enough room to conveniently park 2 hovers with a steep sandy slope that might accommodate our third craft. Louis powers up the slope with the intent of parking near or on the top of the 8' bank. Fortunately he didn't hit this any hotter than he did as half way up he noted that the back side of this bank is a sheer drop straight down into a creek bed. A good reminder of the value of not topping a hill (large or small) without first learning what's on the other side.

Finally 2:30 rolls around, we are full and warm and its time to think about the 20 mile return trip. We hit the Etowah with a downstream heading and soon find ourselves clearing the logjam back in Canton. From here we continue another 3 or 4 miles into the middle of nowhere and the belt on Jeff's thrust fan chooses this time and place to strand us on the bank. We are fortunate enough that a convenient piece of shoreline exists, but unfortunate to be far removed from civilization or even road access.

Fred produces a good quality tow rope some 15' in length, however, the thought of a conventional tow is not a pleasant one. They are 10 miles from the Cherokee Mills ramp and still at least 4 miles from water deep enough to access with a boat. Jeff and Louis review options and agree to try an unmanned on-lift tow. With luck perhaps it will be possible to get Jeff's 500# craft over the hump under these conditions and back to our tow vehicles before dark.

Jeff pushes his craft out into the water, snugs up the tow line, fires up his lift engine and then gives Louis the signal to proceed. He then hops in with Fred to observe and take a few pictures of the attempt. As one might expect getting this 2-hover train over the hump was no easy task. Louis' craft with driver and supplies weighs in at almost 800# and Jeff estimates the empty weight of his waterlogged craft at 500#.

Click on the map above for a closer view.

Shallow flats offer good landing zones just above Knox Bridge when Lake Allatoona is a few feet below full pool.

Why not power up a hill, before you know what's on the
other side?

About midway between Canton, GA and Lake Allatoona
Jeff's thrust belt decides to take a leave of absence.

After about 5 minutes of continuous WOT Louis sees the speed indicator on his GPS creep past 10MPH and slowly on over 11, 12, 13, etc. Suddenly at 15 it takes off and runs to 20 in a matter of seconds, we found the hump speed! After a bit of experimentation it is determined that a throttle position of 75% or so could maintain a headway of 16 or 18 MPH, but a long period of WOT would be required if the tow train is allowed to drop dow under 15MPH.

Soon comes lesson 2 "Directional Instability". The craft in tow was not particularly interested in staying directly behind the towing craft. Hard to say whether this was an air stream issue or was caused by the small wake. Regardless, it created the need for continuous steering corrections that might be likened to trying to tow a car on black ice. On at least 4 occasions the corrections became too dramatic and led to complete spin-outs that were close to a full 360 degrees.

Several times Louis stops to allow his thrust engine to cool down. One of these stops leeds to the discovery that the intense getting over the hump process can be avoided all together by using a short section of beach as a runway before entering the water. Finally we start to see signs of civilization and notice that our recovery was drawing quite a few puzzled looks. Perhaps they had never seen a hovercraft before? On the other hand maybe the sight of Jeff's hovercraft with its lift engine running and its unbelted thrust prop spinning a good 1000 RPM - pushing a manned craft with a rope? Possibly they concluded that this was some new form of an experimental design?

While this story has gotten rather lengthy, it does have a ending and fortunately it is a happy one. Even with the cooling breaks, the tow job is over in about 90 minutes. In the "lessons learned" department I offer the following comments: (1) a shorter rope might make it easier to get over the hump, but would place the two craft quite close together, (2) it was not as hard to stop (without collision) as you might think, but you must be on a slight uphill slope if on smooth land and (3) keep it slow enough that you don't have any concern over plowing in.