The History of Airboats

By: Glenn Wilsey, Sr.

They’ve been around for a long time but many people still don’t know what an airboat is. An airboat is a big ski with an engine and a propeller to provide the thrust and it is steered by a rudder. Airboats “ski” across the grass in the Everglades without harming the environment. Airboats are used by the military, commercially by tour guides like me, municipally for tasks such as search and rescue, and by sportsmen in many types of areas that would be difficult if not impossible to traverse any other way.

When the Hoover Dam project began, the only way to ferry people and equipment to the work sites between vertical walls hundreds of feet straight up was in airboats.

Recently, much of the world got to see airboats (many, no doubt, for the first time) in one of their most important jobs, search and rescue. When Value Jet flight 592 crashed in the Everglades, over 100 privately owned airboats were at the command center within an hour and a half. Unfortunately, there were no survivors of that disaster. In the Northern United States and Canada, where they have that cold white stuff that we don’t get to see here in South Florida, airboats have also proved a very versatile vehicle for rescue operations. Airboats can skim over snow and ice and into the water then just as easily turn around and head right back up onto the land.

Airboats have been used in most of our major military actions. The military began experimenting with the idea of airboats for use in military operations as early as the 1920’s, and has been using them ever since.

After World War II times were hard for a lot of veterans. In South Florida, times were just as bad. One South Florida veteran was John Galakie. John and his wife Betty opened a bar and grill on U.S. hwy. 41 just west of Miami, in the Everglades.

Betty & Johny’s was a great place for the locals to go for food and drink, especially, frog legs. Many of the locals back then made their living hunting that particular delicacy, but frogging was a difficult job. The froggers would push small skiffs through the sloughs but could not maneuver through the tall and thick Everglades’ grasses.

Some of these froggers had seen airboats while in the military and took it upon themselves to add a small engine and prop to a flat bottom boat, just to see if it would work for frogging. These homemade airboats worked so well that all the froggers were soon using them to ski across the grasses, catching frogs faster and easier than ever before.

The froggers would catch frogs at night, clean them in the morning and sell their bounty while they were fresh. A lot of the locals and tourists would stop by just to see the strange machines parked on the side of the road behind the signs offering frog legs. Visitors would often ask the froggers for a ride on the strange contraptions, so some of the boys started to charge folks for a ride and this is how airboat tours got their start. Airboat rides are among the most thrilling things one can do for fun.

I grew up west of Miami. Now, in the tourism industry, I work, live and play in the Everglades. We use airboats to take tourists and our friends deep into the Everglades to get as close as possible to nature. As a naturalist, my airboat is very important to me. To really appreciate the alligators, plants and animals of the Everglades. NATURE RULES!
*This story or any part of can not be used or reproduced with out written permission of the author!