Ekranoplanes and other Ground-Effect vehicles

you forgot the Frisbee made by Wham o

http://www.seaircraft.com/

http://www.ikarus342000.com/VOLGA2page1.htm

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/aerodynamics/q0130.shtml

http://www.wigetworks.com/

http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?aircraftsearch=Alekseyev%20A-90%20Orlyonok&distinct_entry=true

http://www.sa-transport.co.za/aircraft/saaf/skimmerfoil/jorg_iv.html

almost forgot

http://www.moller.com/

joshua

Thanks for the links Joshua.

Would anyone suggest why the Idea was not yet found suitable for ocean crossing? Most existing applications are for small vehicles, or for lake (or calm sea) crossing.

Any Ideas?

Heighth of minimal powered flight is 1/2 wing length. The shock wave off the leading edge is reflected into the underside of the wing for a high pressure effect.

To clear Ocean waves requires a very large plane and considerable investment in design. Top speed for efficiency is low. I think under 100 mph. So the niche market is faster than ships but much slower than planes.

To make the leap from lake to Ocean would mean developing a market from scratch (0) with no precedent to justify it. So you would need the customers first to drive the development.

I have also wondered if empty flat areas would not profit from this tech.

2cents from

Brad

And the military is an ideal customer. I can imagine an inter-continental stealth bomber coming over the ocean under the radar screens. Once you're at the other side, most of your fuel load is used up and you no longer need to fly in ground effect.

New arms race anyone? Not that I'm paranoid, but when they have been out to get you for a long time old habits die hard.

This is an old beast, started development at the early ninety seventies... Both sides made similar attempts... Not very ocean worthy...

Arms race may still resonate in Putin's mind, but not using these.

He hopes to gain short-term advantage by exporting their proven military technologies to third-world countries, and even that, only to improve government revenue, in a country robbed of it's natural resources by oligarchs and other crime-lords, who took over the mineral (mostly oil, gold, and industrial mineral extraction) as well as manufacturing facilities, during the transition from communism to free-market economy.

Tomorrow's tactical advantage is in robotics (unmanned delivery systems) and web-control.

Putin has his five year long gloves-off war with these crime moguls, in order to regain government reach and control over these vast resources, but so far, to no avail.

In any future global match, raw military explosive power will not suffice. These days are over for good, ever since the SALT agreements.

Commercial power projection has a lot to say in this, and Russia is too corrupt yet to become an economic super-power.

That's exactly why Gorbachev dismantled the Soviet Union: he was a hard-core communist who understood that the Soviet weakness in a global match was it's economy. Their shaky economy was slaved to support a vast inefficient army, simply couldn't afford the continuation of the cold war, and when Regan announced a new leap of technology (then called "Star-Wars"), the finally gave up, realising that in the coming decades, in order to be a global player, projecting your power requires the economy to match.

Two issues: The ocean is wired for sound so with a little work you could track their signature's; satellites track sound and visual. So stealth would be tricky but not impossible.

Brad

As I recall the Russians have one in military use of recent design for such movements. But again non commercial. You are right they would be far more efficient at water travel than boats faster less fuel.

and of course the great american effort :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules

Hey, the Hughes Spruce Goose could only be considered Erkano because it barely managed to lift itself some foot or two off the surface.

It was intended however, to be the Antonov of the forties. It couldn't because Hughes, insisting on his megalomaniac extreme design features, managed to crap the whole thing into a museum piece.

Antonov, managed to produce an excellent design, however ambitious it was.

but the "Goose" was ahead of it's time and made from renewable resources and as far as I can see one of the first GFV, even unintentionally.

Yup. He can't be denied of that, and many other breakthrough technologies, like that Glomar monster, which dug the Soviet nuclear submarine. What a bold, aggressive, inspired design!

The Glomar is still exploring the oceans or at least the sister ships, after it became proven technology but the Spanish did similar types of recover much earlier than 1970's

If you imagine the condition where you have very flat water but high winds (a speed-windsurfer's dream) and you put a boat like this one on that water, and got it cooking, it could (using the 20 foot wide horizontal wing, with suitable flap at its trailing edge for lift control) lift clear of the water, ridding itself of some of that gooey draggy stuff. The horizontal wings and vertical wing are of about the same area, although you'd never think so from this pic.

The hovercraft was a popular way of crossing the Channel to France. It has been overshadowed a bit recently by the high-speed catamaran and the Channel Tunnel rail services.

http://images.uk.ask.com/fr?q=Hoverspeed&desturi=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.photo-transport.co.uk%2Fferries%2Fhovercraft%2Fhovercraft.htm&fm=i&ac=24&ftURI=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.uk.ask.com%2Ffr%3Fq%3DHoverspeed%26desturi%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.photo-transport.co.uk%252Fferries%252Fhovercraft%252Fhovercraft.htm%26imagesrc%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.photo-transport.co.uk%252Fferries%252Fhovercraft%252Fhover-hoverlloyd_small.JPG%26thumbsrc%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252F65.214.37.88%252Fts%253Ft%253D9554273263466267787%26thumbuselocalisedstatic%3Dfalse%26fn%3Dhover-hoverlloyd_small.JPG%26imagewidth%3D280%26imageheight%3D194%26fs%3D7%26ft%3Djpg%26f%3D2%26fm%3Di%26ftbURI%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fimages.uk.ask.com%252Fpictures%253Fq%253DHoverspeed%2526page%253D1%2526pstart%253D&qt=0

Incredibly noisy things!