A Russian friend with aerospace background grumbled to me once that the general designer (Alexeyev) was well connected in the Party. Whenever one of his ekranoplans failed to live up to expectations, he announced that it just needed to be made larger in order to be efficient. Hence the CSM and the Lun.
Korea's Wingship Technology is pursuing the Lippisch-type WIG with a reverse-delta wing. They have an interesting-looking 50-pax craft, but don't seem to have done much in the air except a short hop in a straight line.
Last edited by LowObservable; 1st Jul 2015 at 11:56.