THE first multi-million-pound hovercraft to run a cross-channel passenger service is being broken up in Hampshire after 35 years.

Swift was the most famous of the SRN-4 fleet - the largest and fastest passenger hovercraft in the world - making the channel crossing in a breathtaking half hour.

She completed over 10,000 crossings from Ramsgate to Calais after being built at a cost of £2.5m on the Isle of Wight.

The SRN-4, in Swift liverage, is still one of the most popular Airfix model kits to buy, with early versions rated as highly collectable.

The model company launched it in 1969, and since then it's had four relaunches and been painstakingly built by thousands of youngsters over four decades. But now wreckers are taking the craft apart so that the museum which owns it can save £15,000 in land rent.

However, bosses at the Hovercraft Museum in Lee-on-the-Solent say visitors will not miss out because two more SRN4 class hovercafts - Princess Anne and Princess Margaret - are soon to arrive.

Trustee Warwick Jacobs said: "It's quite sad that Swift's going but we're going to be getting two more to replace her.

"We are going to save £15,000 a year which is good news for the museum."