Russian Water Takeoff, Sort of

[Dan Reno]

Russian Secret Project Exposed. (http://www.vincelewis.net/ekranoplan.html)

[Jackboot]

Fascinating stuff despite nil relevance to the Rotorheads Forum.

I think it would be well received over on the FlyPast Forum too.

Atlantic travel of the future? I dont think it will cope with huge swells being designed more for inland seas?

Fascinating.

JB

[Agaricus bisporus]

Interesting pics etc, shame about the breathless and error (not to say nonsense) ridden script though.

Doomed to fauilure as being largely unable to maneuvre (see colour pic of an attempt at a turn) minimal tip clearance = big accident soon...Can't avoid obstacles easily, astronomic fuel consumption at sea level, corrosion, brutal mechanical environment. Undetectable by radar!!!! Fly over land? Hmm...

Nah, don't think so.

But can we have one at Duxford please?

[WHBM]

The Caspian Sea Monster was a project of the Soviet Union, not of Russia.

It was not a secret for long, and amazingly the remaining hulls, which still exist, are readily visible on Google Earth ! I haven't got the time to scan the Caspian coastline looking for them (I've lost the old link I had) but someone with a spare wet afternoon could dig them up.

The tailplane looks like it was by the same designer as the IL-76, the advancing of the all those throttles separately by several crew members must surely have given some yaw issues, and in fact the whole overall design of the several different Ekranoplan prototypes looks like it was a KGB error of the 1970s in presenting the plans stolen from Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds modelmaking studio as next-generation RAF blueprints to be reverse-engineered.

Not sure how well it would have done in ocean waves away from the calm of the Caspian. The Soviets relentlessly pursued large high-speed weapons which would enable them to attack and sink US aircraft carriers, and the Ekranoplan was one of a number of avenues they went down. Another was the Sukhoi T-4 Sotka, looking like a predecessor of the Tu-144, which was a huge delta-wing Mach 3 attack aircraft, which likewise didn't get beyond the prototype stage (the prototype is now in the museum at Monino near Moscow).

[Corsairoz]

Here is the 'Caspian Sea Monster':

http://lh3.ggpht.com/TolipM/RwvXjleNqFI/AAAAAAAAAmU/Ex52r-YP-Fg/s800/monster1.jpg

There are 2 Ekranoplan's here on this Google Earth link.

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=27244&filename=526742-Ekranoplanes.kmz

You need to have Google Earth installed, of course. Here is a picture of the one on dry land. I think this is the A-90 "Orlyonok" ("Eaglet"),- 140 tonnes, 58 metres length 'aircraft' (?) similar to, but smaller than the fabled 'Caspian Sea Monster', which I think crashed in the late 70's. I do not know what the other one there is. Could it be a LUN? It's not the sea monster.......

Enjoy
Trevor

http://static3.bareka.com/photos/medium/14778842.jpg

[Double Zero]

While it' a very interesting project, as previously mentioned - how it ever got beyond the " Just a thought " stage to real thing defies belief...

Speaking as a yachtie as well as aviation fan, I reckon nothing could spoil more peopl'e day quicker than seeing one of these things roaring towards you !

Not exactly a steathy thing to base anywhere the U.S. Carriers might go without them knowing about it - Gerry Anderson wouldn't have agreed to this one...

Presumably someone knew someone in Soviet air bureaux & 'govt', and another someone a bit lower just had to say " yes Sir ! " after spluttering into their Vokdka.

[WHBM]

I never realised that the smaller, propeller-powered one was a contra-rotating prop, in the classic Soviet style of the Tu-114/An-22/Bear type. Obvious now I think about it. Previous photos were of it in operation.

While it's a very interesting project, as previously mentioned - how it ever got beyond the " Just a thought " stage to real thing defies belief...
There is of course another thought, which is the whole thing, apart from being a research project into military technologies Soviets made considerable use of (they were world leaders in developing hydrofoils) could have been just a foil to tie up large amounts of American defence budget in combating a "threat" which was actually a hoax. All those weapons which looked like they were to attack aircraft carriers doubtless caused the US military enormous use of resources in coming up with defensive approaches to them. Now maybe the Soviets knew they could not do it, but by having "secret" projects which the US would discover it was all just a way to divert attention.

After WW2 there were a number of films made about how the British government laid out decoy airfields in the middle of nowhere, which successfully diverted German bombers, and all the thousands of rubber "tanks" laid out for German reconnaisance to spot a forthcoming invasion force building up in Kent and Essex. "Haha, fooled you", everyone said seeing this after the war. Maybe the KGB were watching as well !

[stilton]

Four engines on each side of the cockpit might have been a little loud.

:}

[Opssys]

This is one of those concepts that has been around a very loong time.
Apparently there were experiments before WWII, but I first learned about the concept in the early 1970's when the Alexander Lippisch Aeroskimmer caused a smidgen of excitment in certain media outlets looking for something to act as a filler.

Whilst his work was relatively public, the USSR had been working on it for sometime and as there was a tendency for them to think big, ok very big, the sea monster was perhaps inevitable.

Russia continues to develop smaller versions of Wing In Ground Effect:
http://www.douglas-ian-holland.co.uk/shared_pix/A-90_Orlyonok_1.JPG

but Western interest seems to have died away although a small company in Auustralia produces a
Design called Sea Eagle (http://www.sea-eagle.org/) (The History Page has some interesting Video Clips) Picture Here: http://www.douglas-ian-holland.co.uk/shared_pix/Wig18.gif


In Singapore another small company is developing one of the Lippisch Designs, but adding an Air Cushion as well a combined Hovercraft/WIG:

The Chinese as might be expected have also had a go. They have produced a 16 Seater Commerical Version, but any Military involvement is not public.

So Currently WIG seems a small Niche, but maybe its time is yet to come :rolleyes:

[Double Zero]

Opssys,

As ' Sea Eagle ' was the name of our ( Exocet style ) sea-skimming missile, at least there's a touch of honesty there !

I just can't imagine hairing around at high speed in something which probably steers like a hovercraft ( or sticks a wing in ) and is still vulnerable to large waves and obstacles...

No doubt a hard pull back on the controls might well let one hop over something, but where do you find guaranteed fairly flat, large stetches of water, where there are no ships or boats ?

Just had second thoughts - on identifying congregation points of jet ski drivers, I'd buy one of these things !

[tail wheel]

Some years ago there was a WIGE aircraft/boat undergoing trials in Cairns, Australia. I seem to recall it came to grief a few years ago.

[Opssys]

James May in one of his recent Big Ideas Programmes had a go in a more recent Russian WIG and from memory saw problems of maneuvering, plus Wave Height (in fact any obstruction above the surface) So .Double Zero has put his finger on one drawback.

Some WIG problems are similar to Hovercraft (hence bigger can be better, but in turn this presents other different problems), others are directly related to those that endanger ultra-low flying low flying aircraft.

I find WIG interesting (but then I am regularly accused of being interested in too many subjects), but at the moment see a technology that is not just outside the mainstream, but is stuck in a tiny pond from which it cannot escape.

But as a concept, WIG is an itch, that every generation wants to scratch, maybe someone will take a look from another angle and resolve what appear to be inherent problems and WIG will become a viable commercial transport and military platform.

[WHBM]

Interesting how a range of such technologies seem to have been and gone.

Hovercraft developed quite rapidly in the 1960s to the handful of substantial car-carrying craft that crossed the English Channel, waves and all, for a generation, but then it all fell away as high-speed catamaran ships developed to the same sort of speeds with much more economy.

Hydrofoils meanwhile became an Eastern European specialty at the same time, and you still see quite a few of those classic old streamlined, almost art nouveau-styled craft left over in various former socialist countries from Soviet days, but as they come to the end of their operational lives there are no replacements.

Wing-in-ground-effect has been a particularly dead end concept.

Meanwhile on land hovertrains, magnetic levitation trains, monorails, and all those have likewise hardly developed beyond a handful of proof-of-concept projects that have constantly failed to prove the concept.

I suppose at the end of the day, if you want to get somewhere speedily over water, land, or a combination of the two, commercial aviation has become unbeatable.

[S'land]

WHBM
I think that we should also consider incentive in this equation. Currently there is no real incentive to overcome the shortcomings of WIGE machines. If for some reason conventional aviation becomes impossible, then it may be that mankind will take another look at WIGE, hovercraft, hydrofoils, etc. Look at the electric car. The basic technology has been around as long as the automobile, but it is only in the last few years, with rising oil prices and the knowledge that the oil will run out one day, that research and development have taken place in a major way. Perhaps the real importance of these technologies is that they are there should we need them.