The Jetfoil goes ahead by the thrust force generated by the water jet propulsors powered by gas turbine engines, and flies over the water surface by the dynamic lift generated by the fully submerged forward and aft foils fixed to the hull with struts. Flying over the water surface is called as “FOILBORNE” and that motion of the Jetfoil is quite similar that one of airplane. In order to keep the hull at a certain height above the water surface and to turn to port or starboard, attitude control is carried out with flaps fitted to the submerged foils whose movement is controlled by the AUTOMATIC CONTROLL SYSTEM (ACS) . In short, the Jetfoil is “AIRPLANE IN THE SEA” which gets the dynamic lift from sea water instead of air. The Jetfoil can fly at relatively slower speed and with smaller wings than airplane because the water is 800 times more dense than the air. There are 43 Jetfoils running in the world and 28 of them were manufactured by The Boeing Company in Seattle, USA. During the construction of those Jetfoils, airplane Boeing 727, 737, 757 were being manufactured under the same roof. It is quite natural that there are a lot of similarities between the Jetfoil and the airplane, because aircraft engineers designed Jetfoils and aircraft workers fabricated Jetfoils.

●Why is it called Jetfoil?The ship was named “Jetfoil” by The Boeing Company who developed this high-tech hydrofoil. When Kawasaki Shipbuilding Corpolation.(KSC) acquired the manufacturing license of the Jetfoil from The Boeing Company, KSC assumed this trademark. Hence “Jetfoil”is now trademark of KSC. The “Jet” is derived from the jet engine (gas turbine) and the water jet propulsor of which main propulsion system of the Jetfoil consists. On the other hand, the “Foil” means a thin steel leaf, that is the fully submerged wing. KSC is now manufacturing the Jetfoil as Kawasaki Jetfoil. This type of the Jetfoil was officially named as “Boeing 929”. The Boeing Company has been using the number 700s to the aircrafts like 707, 727, 737, 747, 777, and number 900s to the ships. The number 929 was also assumed by KSC and KSC has been using this number to their products as Kawasaki Jetfoil 929-117 type.

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