The Ephemeral Existence of the Spanish Hovercraft VCA-36

In the mid-1970s, a company located in the Murcian district of Puente Tocinos, known by the acronym CHACONSA (Compañía Hispanoamericana de Construcciones, Sociedad Anónima), specialists in machinery for the canning industry, decided to make a significant technological leap to enter the world of shipbuilding, designing a prototype of an amphibious vehicle that would move on land and sea on an air cushion.

After presenting the project to the Ministry of Defense, it was deemed interesting enough to receive the “green light,” as its development would provide the Navy with a series of amphibious vehicles that were becoming fashionable at the time, thus giving birth to the project known in Spain as “VCA’s” (Vehículos de Colchón de Aire), or “hovercraft” in the U.S. Navy, which was a pioneer in the design and construction of such vessels, using them to quickly transport its “marines.”

To achieve this, modern facilities were built on the shores of the Mar Menor, on land provided by the Air Force, which would serve as a base for parking and maintaining the future amphibious vehicles that were soon to become a reality.

The building was constructed between late 1984 and mid-1985, and on Christmas of that year, specifically on December 21, the long-awaited and innovative amphibious vehicle, the first of its kind designed for military use in Spain, made its first outing to sea, to the astonishment of locals who could appreciate from the very beginning the high speeds it was capable of achieving.

The basic characteristics of the vehicle, which bore the side number VCA-36 (corresponding to a 36-ton Air Cushion Vehicle), were 25.17 meters in length and 11.04 meters in width. Its propulsion was provided by 2 Textrom Lycoming gas turbines of 2,500 horsepower each, which could give it a speed of 60 knots in calm wind and sea conditions, although during tests, it reached, albeit momentarily, 73 knots, with an approximate autonomy of nine hours.

The payload it could transport was around 70 men with their corresponding combat equipment and three Land Rover-type vehicles, which could be replaced by a light tank of the “Scorpion” type.

Its crew was reduced to just three men, operated from a small bridge located on the starboard side.

Its beginnings were truly promising, and despite being a prototype, new equipment and sensors were gradually added, the most significant being a “VDS” (Variable Depth Sonar), similar to those used by anti-submarine helicopters, with tests conducted with units from the Submarine Flotilla in the waters of Cartagena in December 1987.

These exercises were followed by several others, including maneuvers with our Marine Infantry in the waters of Cádiz, specifically in the Sierra del Retín, and in the marshes of El Coto de Doñana, where the Spanish VCA was even seen stranded on the Cádiz beach of La Caleta, surprising bathers who had never seen anything like it, with the notable fact that it took only six hours and 30 minutes to transit between Cartagena and Cádiz.

However, shortly after, like many other projects, despite showing good results in tests (one cannot help but think of Isaac Peral's torpedo submarine, as history repeated itself), it was ultimately discarded by Defense, with August 4, 1989, marking the day it arrived for the last time at the Cartagena base of El Carmolí, shutting down its turbines for good that day.

From then on, the VCA would go through a certain and weary period of solitude, and while initially the facilities had a permanent presence of maintenance personnel, they would soon stop “standing guard,” leaving the facilities at the mercy of fate, which would not take long to manifest in the form of improvised thieves, until in February 1994, the Secretary of State for Defense decided to put an end to the matter, resulting in what remained of it being auctioned off as scrap, which was hardly usable, if not completely useless, by December of that same year.

Today, people passing by who are unaware of this story encounter an abandoned vessel that housed the only Base of Amphibious Vehicles of the Spanish Navy, whose total development involved an investment of around 2.5 billion pesetas and twelve years of study and materialization, all concentrated in that singular building where years ago an ambitious military naval project was focused, which now only shelters drug addicts and squatters, who roam freely, and graffiti artists who express their art on the walls.

Photos: archive and authored by Diego Quevedo Carmona