Apprentices, from left, Tom Evans, Simon Clarke, Dan Grist and Khalik Hillier with apprentice manager Jason Lowe (Second from left) and the hovercraft blades they have restored.
A BIG part of hovercraft history has been restored by young GKN Aerospace apprentices at East Cowes.
As part of their training, the four apprentices restored two 9ft Hawker Siddeley blades made at the East Cowes site and used to propel the SRN4 hovercraft.
The SRN4s, the largest hovercraft ever built, were operated between Dover and Boulogne and Ramsgate and Calais from the 1960s until 2000.
GKN vice-president and managing director, nacelles, Jeff Armitage, said: "The work on the SRN4 is one of the many pioneering programmes throughout the past century to which our IW team has made a key contribution.
"It is great to see this recognised through the work of some of our newest team members — work that is helping these apprentices extend and grow their own experience.
"It has been so valuable, both as an engineering exercise and in developing strong teamwork, that we plan to form a second team tasked with restoring two more blades."
Apprentices Simon Clarke, Tom Evans, Khalik Hillier and Dan Grist sourced the blades from the Hovercraft Museum at Lee-on-the-Solent, returned them to peak condition and painted them in their original colours.
They used the latest engineering design programmes to create the frame that supports the massive blades and central spinner.
Tom said: "It was good to get so close to what was state-of-the-art technology only 40 years ago and to begin to really understand the challenges the engineers faced.
"We then worked with today’s engineering technology to design, from scratch, an effective and safe support for them."
The two restored blades form part of a display, which can be seen at GKN’s East Cowes site.
Reporter: richardw@iwcpmail.co.uk