Imagine seeing this on your waters...

Fly wrote "We were probably typing at the same time" Yes I've done that too.

HopCar, Yea I've seen some ground effect things that were pedaled like a bicycle.

Marin said:

Ground Effect has nothing to do with heat cushions. It's an aerodynamic principle and you get it with no heat-generating powerplants at all, as in birds.

Click to expand...

I agree!

And I agree

Manyboats, I wonder if any of the various human powered aircraft have ever flown out of ground effect. Both the Gossamer Condor and the Gossamer Albatross had wing spans of close to 100 feet but I don't think they ever went higher than about twenty feet.

I'm surprised you don't remember this, Eric.

Speed limit exemption for winged ships | Juneau Empire - Alaska's Capital City Online Newspaper

Pacific Seaflight – Wingships

When I was working on the AMHS we kept waiting to be passed by one on the way to Skagway ...

Very interesting Rick. And hits home as I was born there and my father was a reporter for the Empire.

I thought the high speed catamaran ferry was a joke too but it exists.

However I can't imagine a WIG coming out of Gastineau Channel into a Taku wind (broadside) coming out of Taku Inlet. And then up the "Big Lynn" in the winter I think the wind blows at least 100 knots and on occasion it does that at Lincoln Rock in Clearance Strait close to where we just moved from. The WIG may not even go 100 knots. Lots of things come and go and I suspect this is one that will go. May miss most all the logs though.

A lot better looking than that Russian thing.

HopCar, I don't remember.

Camano 31 said:

The lift is actually from the heat created by the jets engines, which creates a cushion of warm air that goes in a circular motion under it, think of a tornado but horizontal that's what actually keeps plane out of the water. Their was documentary on these on the military channel.

Click to expand...

I just got a call from Giggitoni about this special on the Military Channel today. In all fairness to Camano 31, that's what they said.

"The eight jet engines in front are used for takeoff. They push hot exhaust under the flat rectangular wings, helping to lift them up onto a cushion of air. During flight, the two engines on the tail take over to power the Ekranoplan forward."

They even had the attached graphic showing how it was supposed to work.

They went on describe the difficulties it had with salt water spray on the jet engines and negotiating turbulent seas. In August 1967, it made its first flight. Ultimately, the early version was scrapped, as was its designer who was forced into retirement, only to die 5 years later. (hmmmmmm...) A later version complete with missile tubes along the top of the fuselage was designed to attack the US Fleet with 'aircraft' launched anti-ship missiles. Under Gorbachev's reign and the end of the Cold War, the idea was shelved.

I can understand the engine-exhaust-under-the-wing to force it up into the air. But in the photos posted earlier of the missile-carrying GEV there are not any engines in the tail. There are a couple of huge bulgy things but they don't have exhaust nozzles and appear to be streamlined housings for radar or other electronics, perhaps for the missiles? But it would appear that the eight engines also kept the thing moving forward. At the end of the video that Murray posted this particular GEV is shown flying and there is no indication of engines in the tail--- no intake openings and no exhaust smoke

All in all, though, a very interesting and clever concept even though the execution left a lot to be desired. It would be neat if someone could make it work on a practical basis.

History of Caspian Sea Monster & Ekranoplan

Cool videos and drawings, thanks. I guess they had powerful enough engines on the missile GEV not to need engines on the tail. These things must have been amazingly noisy. Like B-52s probably.

FlyWright said:

Click to expand...

COOL! But are these "Ground Effect Vehicles" or derivations of these?

No. Hovercraft use a cushion of air trapped under the vehicle and allowed to bleed out under the skirts to hold the vessel off the water and reduce the friction against the water's surface so they can be moved fairly effieciently.

The Ground Effect Vehicles are indeed flying and generating lift aerodynamically by the movement of their wings through the air. But by flying just a few feet off the water the greatly reduced drag from ground effect enables them to fly with far less energy expended than if the same machine were to fly at altitude.

So they can fly fairly fast--- some 300 miles an hour in the case of the Soviet machines-- and carry a good size load. The power that would otherwise be needed to provide a lot of lift at altitude can instead be used to provide less lift but carry a heavier load in ground effect.

If you talk to one of your local cormorants or pelicans he or she will be able to give you a much better explanation of ground effect and its benefits than I can. In the photo below I am getting a detailed explanation and demonstration of ground effect from the cormorant I went fishing with on the Li River in China the other year.

When my videographer took this shot the cormorant was getting quite frustrated with my inability to grasp nuances of the air's movement around his wings in ground effect and how he could alter it almost infinitely by moving his trailing edge and wingtip feathers. So he was in the middle of giving me a graphic demonstration of his feather-activation system when Tom took the shot.