It's bright and early in Terre Haute, Indiana.

The Wabash River is flowing peacefully past Fairbanks Park.

And it's a great morning to sit, relax and take in the sights Until you notice something odd motoring past.

It dances and scoots across the top of the water, They're called hovercraft.

and they've got a unique connection with the town they're speeding past.

Hi, I'm Terry Chapman.

Welcome to Hoverally 2026.

Terre Haute is playing host to this year's national gathering of hovercraft enthusiasts.

and they happen to be celebrating the 50th anniversary of their own organization, The Hoverclub of America.

Terry Chapman is from Michigan, and he's the co-chair for this year's rally.

So we don't call it a boat.

We don't call it a plane, but we do pilot them because we are flying on air.

We don't have wheels.

We don't have brakes, but it flies above the surface on a cushion of air.

And the surface can be land, water, ice or snow.

You can spin it, drift it, do 360s and all sorts of things, that you can't do again on any other vehicle.

Ervy Greenwaldt is from Wisconsin, and he's been a member of the club for about 15 years.

The closest thing I can compare this to is drifting a car, but also a jet ski.

You have to power through your turns, but you drift through all of your turns, so the direction you're facing isn't always the direction you're traveling.

looking around, you'll see different types, different styles and different features on all of these rides.

and you'll see that they've got just as much personality as the person in the pilot's seat.

the club's been going on for 50 years now.

It's started here.

So it's awesome to come back to where it started.

Back in the 60s and 70s, Hovercrafts were still considered a pretty new and novel idea.

When American enthusiasts started to connect and coalesce, they realized they needed somewhere special to congregate.

Being centrally located and with easy access to the river and nearby lakes, Terre Haute, Indiana wound up being the ideal place.

The Hoverclub of America was founded right here back in 1976, and one of their youngest members at the time was a 14 year old Terry Chapman.

Terry built his first craft that year.

He built his second craft the next, and by 1978, he was racing them right here on the Wabash.

it's everything to me.

So I've been in hovercrafts for 50 years now myself, it's been a tremendous hobby.

It has opened doors to my career.

It's now opening doors for my kids.

And it feels good.

It feels like a reunion.

It feels like family.

In fact, there is a craft that's here today that was at Terre Haute in 1978, the same craft 48 years later.

And I happened to post online an old picture of his craft from 1978.

He got all fired up, pulled the craft out of his barn, cleaned it all up.

It looks pretty darn good.

so that's why I'm here.

I kind of got a personal invite.

And plus, the wife says, get that thing out of storage and bring it down here.

So that's what I did.

John Thompson hauled in this homemade marvel from Illinois.

This is a hovercraft that John built with his own father Back in 1978, as a man in his early 20s, not only did it cost John $1,000 and two months of labor to put this together, It also wound up requiring just a little bit of homemade ingenuity.

we we're a real conservative, and we we wouldn't we didn't waste anything.

The dashboard is, a stop sign The stick for the rudder control is, Eureka vacuum cleaner that we cut and brazed to put it back together.

the rudders are aluminum siding, The lift engine prop fan cover is made out of a floor fan.

That's kind of like the prettiest thing on there, Now there's been a new paint job But it's still the same hovercraft after all these years.

And the club members, they know that this this is something special.

typically when you start to use your hovercraft, it like anything else wears out, wood will rot, paint will peel, things will fall apart, and most people will discard it, put it away, and move on to something new.

His craft is a survivor, I've had this in the back of my shed for fifty years, I mean, we've taken it out.

I probably have 400 miles, 500 miles on this one here.

but I put it away and keep it dried it off, when I'm done.

It's not hard to see why John did all that extra work, though.

He considers that time and money to be very well spent.

Oh every bit of it.

Every bit.

Because I met that gal right over there, on this.

So otherwise it would have never happened.

Maybe, I don't know.

We've been married for lots of years.

Over 40, to be exact.

The Thompsons celebrated that milestone last year.

Just two people out of the many who spent a nostalgic weekend out on the Wabash.

At first it kind of makes you feel old a little bit, but, I get over it, you know, and it's it's pretty cool.

And I love it.

It's a lot of fun.

I sat on this park bench behind me, and I just reminisced about all the times we've been out here As the sun starts to set, the pilots bring their crafts back to shore and wipe down the last traces of mud and dust.

You can tell that it meant a lot to the club members to be back in the city where it all started for them.

I don't come for the hovercrafts anymore.

I come for the relationships, the friendships to renew these friendships, these people that I haven't seen in years.

well a lot of times we only get to see this group of people once, maybe twice a year.

So we always, enjoy coming together, seeing each other in person instead of just talking online meeting the people, listening to different ideas, seeing different ideas and just the camaraderie.

good people, the kind of people that you want in your life who lift you up, don't drag you down and why it's so fun to see them here at this event again.

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