The Making and Unmaking of the American Hovercraft

But just as his unreachable patients compelled him to build his first hovercraft, more noble interests continue to drive Bertelsen.

Lowering gas consumption is one of them. With an eye to fuel efficiency, Bertelsen began developing a vertical take-off and landing airplane (VTOL), a vehicle with an elliptical-shaped arc wing that attempts to solve a deficiency in modern airplanes: once you get them in the air, you want to saw off part of their wing. That's because the lengthy apparatus, which is necessary for lift-off, slows speed and increases friction. By tipping Bertelsen's arc wing back to garner a higher angle of attack, airplanes can leave the ground with a shorter wingspan, allowing for a much swifter ride.

In theory, at least. Bertelsen has never constructed a full-size VTOL model, let alone an actual airplane. In 2003, though, he worked with his son, W.D. Bertelsen, and the University of Illinois to apply for a NASA-funded grant that would have helped to further develop the machine.

He didn't win.

"The committee thought our design was a little too radical," W.D. Bertelsen says.

But Bertelsen has been closer to the edge of success. In 2000, the U.S. Coast Guard toyed with the idea of using his A-2000 vehicle, which evolved from his first hovercraft, for ice patrol and rescue. Nothing emerged. In 2007, venture capitalists expressed interest in his arc wing technology. Again, nothing.

"We've went as far as flying out to New York City to sign the papers for agreements to manufacture some of these vehicles," says William Kirby, Bertelsen's Web designer. "And they didn't show up."

There's always hope for tomorrow, though. Bertelsen and Kirby say that an unnamed individual could soon invest as much as a million dollars in his gimbal-fan system, which provides a better control system for the unwieldy hovercraft. Instead of resting on an immobile surface, his engine sits on a rotational fan, a structure that can be flipped to propel the air stream horizontally or vertically. This flexibility garners lift, propulsion and restraint simultaneously.

"It's [Bertelsen's] most well-known, well-developed technology," Mark Bergee, chief aerodynamicist of Geneva Aerospace, Inc, says. "It's so well-known that the Russian scientists who developed some of the largest ground-effects vehicles thanked him because they had used it in their studies."

Even if Bertelsen doesn't land the investment, though, it wouldn't all be for naught. A lifetime of dedication is nothing to frown at, and neither is an 88-year-old who's still working, playing, and trying to revolutionize transportation.