History

The aboriginal airboat, alleged the Ugly Duckling, was congenital in 1905 in Nova Scotia, Canada by a aggregation led by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. It was acclimated to analysis assorted engines and prop configurations. An accessory of Dr. Bell, Glenn Curtiss (of aeroplane accomplishment fame) is appear to accept registered the aboriginal airboat in Florida, USA in 1920. It was alleged the Curtis Scooter2 and it had a bankrupt cockpit design.

A adventure in the Nov/Dec 2009 affair of Airboating Annual that showed an airboat alleged a Free Basal Craft that was congenital in the mid to backward 1920s, application a copse hull, a Curtiss aircraft engine and was on display at a New York baiter show. The airboat was congenital by Charles Post and Herbert Ballantine in Huntington, NY and activated on the Continued Island's Hewlett Bay.

By the 1930s bootleg airboats began actualization in the swamps and marshes of Florida and Louisiana. One aggregation in Florida claims to accept been accouterment airboat rides as ball aback the mid 1930s. Over the years a array of designs were approved and through trial-and-error, the accepted architecture acclimated today arose: an open, collapsed basal baiter with an engine army on the back, the disciplinarian sitting in an animated position, and a cage to assure the ballista from altar aerial into them. One able-bodied accurate case of a bootleg architecture (though not the first) was an airboat congenital by agents at the Bear River Bird Ambush abreast Brigham City, Utah in the 1940s. It appears to accept complex collaborative efforts by three advisers of the ambush - Leo Young, G. Hortin Jensen and Cecil Williams.citation needed

A adventure in Ducks Unlimited annual in 1987 mentioned Young and Jensen and anachronous the architecture of the aboriginal baiter in 1950. Ambush records, however, appearance the aboriginal baiter came into use in 1943, with several photos of active air boats anachronous 1947. Prior to the addition of the airboat, ambush biologists had to either airing through bank baptize and deep, adhesive mud or advance unpowered flat-bottom boats with continued poles. Agents had experimented with a baiter alleged the "Mud Queen," which had baby paddle auto on either ancillary that pushed the boat. They congenital their aboriginal airboat nicknamed "Alligator I" from a flat-bottom baiter pushed forth by an aircraft engine purchased for $99.50. Young appear that he alleged the aboriginal airboat an "air-thrust boat." Once chat got out about the boat, Leo Young congenital and awash boats all over the world.