Melville W. Beardsley

Melville W. Beardsley
Born	10 October 1913 Kansas City, Missouri
Died	26 November 1998 Carmel, California
Alma mater	University of Illinois
Known for	Hovercraft

Melville Whitnel Beardsley (10 October 1913 in Kansas City, Missouri – 26 November 1998 in Carmel, California) was the American inventor and aeronautical engineer whose pioneering efforts may have contributed to the invention of the Hovercraft.

Melville Beardsley was born in Kansas City, Missouri on 10 October 1913, to George and Ella Whitnel Beardsley. His father and grandfather Beardsley were attorneys. He was the third generation of his family to graduate from the University of Illinois, where he took a degree in mechanical engineering. From childhood he was fascinated with flight, and soon after college he joined the United States Army Air Corps as a pilot. By the time World War II broke out, he was one of the Army's few experienced pilots and spent the war years as a flight instructor at Hondo Field, Texas. The United States Army (and later United States Air Force which was created out of the Army's Air Corps) sponsored post-graduate education in aeronautics and management at Georgia Tech and the University of Chicago. He was USAF project officer for Northrup's famous flying wing.

It's difficult to establish exactly when Mel Beardsley conceived the air-cushion vehicle, but he worked on a Navy hydrofoil project in southern California about 1950, and this was his first known involvement in marine vehicles. The air-cushion may have been a low-friction boat-hull solution, to which Beardsley added forced air as the missing element for the basic air-cushion vehicle.

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