Foundation , 2019 The firm was founded in 1965 by inventor
Jean Bertin with backing from the French government under
Georges Pompidou, in an attempt to create a French rival to the
British Hovercraft Corporation's SR.N4 Mountbatten Class hovercraft. The firm was initially a subsidiary of Bertin's company
Bertin et Cie along with separate companies for Bertin's
Aérotrain and
Terraplane projects.
Production The company produced several different craft, which they called
Naviplanes including the N.101, N.102 and N.122 types. The first French commercial hovercraft was the SEDAM
N.300 Naviplane, which was first announced in 1966. The N.300 was first operational in the Mediterranean with Société Naviplane Côte d'Azur, with the technical and economical aspects of designing and operating the craft being presented by SEDAM President and Director General Abel Thomas and Bertin at the Second International Hovercraft Conference in Southampton in 1971. The N.300 was seen by the company as prototype for a much larger craft, designed for operation across the
English Channel or between France and
Corsica in the
Mediterranean Sea. This larger craft was originally proposed to carry 500 passengers The N.500 project started in 1973 with the commencement of detailed research which involved scale models to test all aspects of the crafts operation. Two orders had been made by SNCF with the second,
Ingénieur Jean Bertin being constructed almost simultaneously. After skirt damage to ''Côte d'Argent'' during the first test flight on 19 April 1977, she was sent for repair at SEDAM's
Pauillac factory after an unsatisfactory skirt repair by the skirt manufacturer, in advance of her inauguration during a private visit on 9 May 1977 by
Queen Elizabeth II, the
Prince of Wales and
Baron Philippe de Rothschild. During this repair work damage to a lightbulb by an operative ignited the adhesive being used to repair the skirt and the resulting fire completely destroyed her.
Ingénieur Jean Bertin was finally delivered to
Seaspeed in November 1977 although its entry into service was beset by technical problems Ultimately this would not transpire into further orders and a temporary withdrawal in September 1981 of
Ingénieur Jean Bertin would see it remain out of service until 1983 to receive extensive modifications at a cost of £500,000 in efforts to improve reliability for new operators
Hoverspeed.
Closure The modifications to
Ingénieur Jean Bertin and failure to secure further orders saw the collapse of SEDAM, by now owned by
Chantiers Dubigeon-Normandie, in 1982 After closure, the factory site was re-developed for non-aviation usage. ==Craft==