As a child, like many of us I was drawn to building models, and of course, at school we had these arts and crafts lessons - a welcome relief from learning 'times tables' and 'weights measures', although those skills did come in handy too. One of my earliest attempts at building a model was inspired by news of the latest transport technology -the SRN1 hovercraft. But, surprisingly the idea for the real thing had a very long history and was almost 250 years old, although like many of us my first thoughts were directed to Christopher Cockerell, creator of the SRN1. The original concept came from a Swedish theologian, a philosopher with a passion for science. Emanuel Swedenborg had studied physics at Uppsala in Sweden, and travelled across Europe, through the Netherlands, Germany and England. He returned to Sweden in 1715, and in his own publication Daedelus in 1716 described his own design for a "Flying Machine", which was described as resembling an upside-down boat. At the heart of this - literally - was a control position, with a paddle used to compress the air beneath the boat, to provide lift. Clearly manpower alone would never provide enough force to provide the necessary lift - so it remained simply a sketch on paper. There was then around a 150-year gap until in Britain, Sir John Thornycroft began experimenting with the idea of using a 'film' of air to reduce the drag between the hull of a ship and water. There was no intention to try and use air to 'lift' the ship, but simply to provide less friction.
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