TRIBUTES flowed into Hampshire today as the South mourned the death of one of Britain's greatest inventors, Sir Christopher Cockerell.

Sir Christopher, the man who invented the hovercraft at Cowes on the Isle of Wight and lived for many years at Hythe, would have been 89 tomorrow.

He died at Sutton Manor Nursing Home in Sutton Scotney, where he had been a resident in recent months.

First involved in radio research, the Cambridge University graduate worked on airborne and navigational equipment research from 1935 to 1951.

His aeronautic navigational equipment helped Britain's Second World War bombers find their targets.

And he only discovered in recent years that one of his maritime inventions, which enabled ships' naviga-tors to see over the horizon, helped HMS Suffolk with her successful tracking of the German battleship Bismarck.

He left the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company to buy a small boat-yard in Norfolk, where he began experimenting with the idea of making boats float on a cushion of air.

In 1955, he successfully tested the idea by using two coffee tins and a hairdryer and in 1956 he achieved the all-important breakthrough when his idea was taken up by the Ministry of Supply.

His idea was granted contracts for further development at Cowes with Saunders Roe Ltd, which was an expert in such things as flying boats.

And his work was so successful that on June 11, 1959 the first full-sized hovercraft, the SR-N1, took to the water under the gaze of the world's media at Cowes with test pilot Peter Lamb at the controls.

It was labelled the world's first flying saucer by some and the scudbug by others.

One month later, it crossed the English Channel and Sir Christopher's dream that it could become a major form of transport was becoming reality.

Sir Christopher and his wife, Margaret, who had moved to Cowes and later lived in Lymington and Bassett in Southampton, moved to Hythe in 1971, where he continued to be closely associated with research work.

His work at Hythe began in 1960 with the setting-up of Hovercraft Development Limited, which he headed until 1966 when he resigned because he felt hovercraft production was becoming too much of a monopoly and there was insufficient scope for different companies to produce their own makes.

Sir Christopher, who was knighted in 1969, always maintained his love for the hovercraft, and he expressed disappointment in recent years over a lack of effort to develop its potential as a military craft.

Though extremely active in his retirement, close friends and relatives noticed that Sir Christopher had lost some of his sparkle follow-ing the death of his wife in 1996 after 59 years of marriage.

He leaves two daughters, Frances Airy and Anne Cockerell.

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