Air boat - Definition and Overview

Air boats are flat-bottomed punts powered by a propeller attached to large automobile engine usually with the cylinders in V6 or V8 form. The propeller has the typical shape and size of an airplane propeller and so requires a large metal cage to protect passengers and other users. The flat bottom allows air boats to navigate easily through shallow swamps and marshes as well as in canals, rivers and lakes. The driver sits high on a staging to allow easy conduction and spotting floating obstacles and animals in the path of the boat. Steering is accomplished by swivelling vertical fins at the rear of the engine mounting and so control is somewhat haphazard. However the claim is that even at speeds of 45 miles per hour {60 kph} they are 100% safe. The noise from the propellor is quite loud and drowns out the noise of twin exhausts from the engine. Air boats vary in size from 18 person tour boats to trail boats carried on a road trailer and suitable for two or three passengers.

In the Everglades, Florida, USA, where these boats were invented and first used, they were originally devised for the purpose of frog hunting but nowadays they are most usually employed for tourist rides.

Note: Airboat is also sometimes used for the same kind of boat described here, although in the beginning of the history of aviation the term was used to name amphibian aircraft, or airplanes capable of taking off and landing on water surfaces (now called flying boats or seaplanes).