WYNDMERE (AP) - The Rev. Len Loegering sometimes jokingly attributes his ability to go ice-fishing on a cushion of air to the mysterious workings of the Holy Spirit.

But he's quick to confess the force that actually holds his fishing platform aloft flows from an industrial fan powered by a lawnmower engine.

"It's basically a big leaf blower," he says of his homemade hovercraft's propulsion system.

That big leaf blower includes a second fan an ultralight aircraft propeller turned by a second lawnmower engine, which cranks enough horsepower to push the mobile icehouse along at a gingerly 40 mph.

Because it takes more than 1,000 feet to stop, however, Loegering usually sticks to a cruising speed of between 10 mph and 20 mph.

Still, he needs to be able to move that fast to overcome stiff headwinds that routinely blow across the prairie. After a few test flights, he discovered that wind gusts pose significant steering problems.

The Styrofoam composite material that comprises roughly 90 percent of the hovercraft, including a cabin that's 11 feet long and 8½ feet wide, catches the wind like a box kite.

Loegering, 60, the parish priest at St. John the Baptist in Wyndmere, is working on a fix involving mounting a pair of skis to steer the craft, which he now navigates using wind rudders.

"Everything's experimental," he says.

Trial and error has been an integral part of building the hovercraft, an idea that came to him more than three years ago, when he decided an ice house floating on a cushion of air would make the ideal vehicle for fishing safely without having to worry about thin ice.

To test the lifting capacity, he enlisted 13 volunteers to stand on the craft in December, a payload that weighed 2,540 pounds. They blasted off briefly over dry land, though his propeller fan whipped up a fierce dust storm.

In fact, the hovercraft easily passed the lift test. The vessel's lift system can handle 3,500 pounds, Loegering estimates.