Q&A: Alberta teacher builds his own homemade hovercraft

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

Myrnam's mayor called Tymofichuk years ago to ask him if he wanted some old hovercraft supplies that were found 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. 

Tymofichuk spoke with CBC Radio's Edmonton AM on 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:

What even inspired you to build this thing?

Well, back when I was a kid — you're way too young to remember this — but we had three TV channels. There was like Channel 2, Channel 4 and Channel 5, and I think 2 and 5 were 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 when you 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 to a 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 to this bigger one.

Im sure that must have felt exhilarating to to see it working, and your 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.