Aqua scooter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article is orphaned as few or no other articles link to it.
Please help introduce links in articles on related topics. (November 2007)
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (October 2007)

Contents

[edit] Invention

The Aqua scooter was first invented and successfully used in 1967 by East German Chemical Engineer Bernd Boettger in attempt to escape the country by water. His first attempt failed and resulted in a 3 month prison sentence which was shortened due to his key industry position. His second attempt was a year later in September of 1968. His second escape attempt was successful and when news of it broke in European news sources an executive at Rockwell International read about it and became interested. The Aqua Scooter is still being used today.

[edit] Specifications

The first machine was able to pull a man through and below the waters surface for five hours at up to 3 mph. The second version had a fiberglass tank, a 1 1/2 horsepower scooter engine, a propeller and a snorkel fed breathing unit.

[edit] Commercial use

Bernd Boettger called a West German Subsidiary of his Rockwell and Boettger was invited to begin work on a commercial version of his Aquascooter. In 1974, Rockwell halted production and development of the aqua scooter. The machine's concept refused to die, in 1978 James Taylor brought it to the United States where he formed AquaScooter Inc. and by the end of January 1978, the first commercial Aquascooter was tested.

Today AquaScooter[1] is still pulling strong, now up to 5 mph and is distributed worldwide.

[edit] References

  This article related to water transport is a stub. You can help by expanding it.