When engineering took flight across Lake LaVerne

The year: 1967
The challenge: Build a hovercraft to race on Lake LaVerne
The budget: $15
The hovercraft pilot: Don Eichner (’67 industrial engineering)

When a professor proposed a hovercraft race on Lake LaVerne, Don Eichner figured, “How hard could it be? Lake LaVerne can be crossed by a thrown 50-cent piece and is never more than 6 feet deep, even at high tide.”

Don grabbed the mimeographed flyer outlining the race terms from Johnny Green, a professor of mechanical engineering, and rounded up a few industrial engineering classmates. They headed to Parks Library, where they found the basics of hovercraft operation, but realized that there wasn’t a blueprint for a small, one-person craft in the books.

They would have to design it themselves.

An idea lifts off

“On a sketch board, we settled on a round body and tried to calculate the volume of air and air pressure necessary to make it float with me, the hovercraft pilot, on board. We planned an angle-iron frame with 10-foot legs to support the machine while on the ground, surrounded by a skeleton framework of electrical conduit,” Don recalled.

Armed with scavenged materials from the Ames city dump and a donated engine and fan, Don and his teammates built a 6-foot-wide craft that looked like “a poorly formed spider web.” Until they covered the whole thing in mattress-ticking fabric.

“Then it looked like a big pillow. Which earned it the nickname ‘the Flying Mattress.’”

From splash-landings to scrappy fixes

Test flights didn’t go quite as planned. Each time Don climbed aboard as pilot, he ended up in Lake LaVerne.

After each dip in the lake, the team hauled the hovercraft ashore, drained the oil, dried out the engine – and planned the next design fix.

“The hovercraft design process turned out to be a classic exercise in product development iteration. We would try an idea. It would fail, and we would rework the machine.”

An old riding lawn mower seat lowered Don’s center of gravity, improving stability. A skirt of more mattress ticking improved forward motion. Anti-torque vents from blue jean pant legs improved steering.

Throughout the process, IE professors Vic Tamashunas and Keith McRoberts offered support.

One triumphant flight

On the day of the race, a big crowd lined Lake LaVerne’s shores. Only one hovercraft arrived: The Flying Mattress.

“I know a few other engineering departments were working on their own hovercrafts, but none of them showed up!”

Don fired up the engine, unsure if this would be another splashdown or a smooth ride.

“I floated onto the water and cruised down Lake LaVerne. It was a beautiful spring day for our one and only successful flight. But we did it. We felt like champions.”

A challenge that shaped a career

Just a few weeks later, Don and his hovercraft teammates graduated and started their first jobs. But Don says the experience stayed with him as he built his career in product development.

“Creating the Flying Mattress was a wonderful way to learn that if you forge ahead with a team, not discouraged by a few dunks in the drink, you’ll learn the lessons you need to create a glorious flight across the water.”

Don’s recollections are condensed and edited from “Hovercraft Project Report, 1967 Industrial Engineering Club Flight on Lake LaVerne, May 1967.”