Flying DUKW

The Flying DUKW was an experiment to find out whether a standard wartime DUKW amphibious truck could be made to run on hydrofoils. It was designed by the Miami Shipbuilding Corporation (MSC), which had earlier built the HALOBATES hydrofoil for the US Marine Corps in 1957.

Development

An engineer's recollection in the archive explains how it started. The first question was whether a DUKW could reach take-off speed without swamping, and how much power that would take. The Army lent a DUKW and the Navy provided a ship to tow it. The trials ran out of Fort Eustis on Chesapeake Bay, with a dynamometer measuring drag at speeds up to about 20 knots. To the team's surprise the DUKW planed well and reached the speeds of interest without swamping. The Army had expected to lose the vehicle and had already written off unaccounted stores against it.

The tow data and experience from HALOBATES, including its autopilot, were used to design the hydrofoil version. It was powered by a Lycoming T-53 gas turbine. Demonstration runs in Miami waters, along a measured mile beside the Miami Beach Causeway, reached more than 30 knots, against about 5 knots for an ordinary DUKW. The writer recalls drivers on the causeway road nearly crashing as the craft rose out of the sea with its wheels still in place.

Legacy

The Flying DUKW led the Marine Corps to look for faster amphibians. Lycoming (AVCO) built the LVHX-1 with fully submerged foils and FMC built the competing LVHX-2 with surface-piercing foils. Both were 38-foot aluminium craft meant to carry 5 tons at 35 knots. Foil retraction, gas-turbine propulsion and cost proved too heavy a penalty, and hydrofoil landing vehicles were dropped.