The Aérotrain was a hovercraft train developped in France in from 1965 to 1975. The lead engineer was Jean Bertin. A U.S. Navy hovercraft attached to the Amphibious assault ship Kearsarge (LHD-3) A hovercraft is a vehicle that is supported on a cushion of air. ... In rail transport, a train consists of a single or several connected rail vehicles that are capable of being moved together along a guideway to transport freight or passengers from one place to another along a planned route. ... 1965 was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... 1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ...

The goal of the Aérotrain was similar to that of the magnetic levitation train: to suspend the train above the tracks so the only friction is that between the carriages and the air. Consequently the Aérotrain could travel at very high speeds with reasonable energy consumption and noise levels, but without the technical complexity and expensive tracks of magnetic levitation. Transrapid maglev in Shanghai A magnetic levitation train or maglev is a train-like vehicle that is suspended in the air above a single track, and propelled forward using the repulsive and attractive forces of magnetism. ... This article is about the resistive force. ...

Three prototypes were built, the 01, the 02, and the I-80. The I-80 was a full-size 80-passenger car running on 18 km of track. It established the world speed record for overland air cushion vehicle on March 5, 1974 with a mean speed of 417.6 km/h and a peak speed of 430 km/h. A kilometre (American spelling: kilometer, symbol: km) is a unit of length equal to 1000 metres (from the Greek words khilia = thousand and metro = count/measure). ... March 5 is the 64th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (65th in leap years). ... 1974 is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar). ... Kilometre per hour (American spelling: kilometer per hour) is a unit of both speed (scalar) and velocity (vector). ...

This project was abandoned in 1975 due to lack of funding and the death of the Jean Bertin.

External links

• Aérotrain (http://aernav.free.fr/English_Index.html)