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Does it get more MPG than the Aptera? Can it run on wind power? Electric? Can it run macos? Can it reduce traffic? Pollution? Well, I guess combustion-engine-generated raw power is waaay obsolete. Perhaps for aircraft or boats. If it were a wige small craft it would be nice.

That technique is not new. Faster sea transportation systems have already been researched. See WIGS for instance. Wings In Ground Effect: transportation by sea, as fast as a slow airplane but more efficient than an airplane.
They were researched during the 60s, specially by the russians and the germans, for military purporses.
The bubble method described in this article also has already been researched for this kind of crafts.
Check it out: http://www.se-technology.com/wig/index.php

Maybe it's just me, but it seems as though this might be vulnerable to enemy attack on a _ridiculous_ scale. I know the the Russians were working on very large aircraft (ekranoplans) that use the wing-in-ground effect to stay aloft, and could theoretically transport an armored battalion at once at 400kts. That would seem to be a much smarter idea, especially since others have been making progress since the Russians gave it up (When Brehznev took over).

It is possible that the giant flying reptiles used a phenomenon called winging ground effect, when a flying object experiences extra lift when skimming the surface of the sea or flat piece of ground.

> This new Russian thing sounds flakey, but not fake. [...]
> It sounds like they're fooling around with boundary layer control.

I think there's a bit of tunnel vision involved here. I read their "brochure", and they do mention that it's supposed to fly at 500-700 km/h at an altitude of 8-13 km, but the rest of the text only talks about ground effect flight and landing. Judging by the shape of the plane, its flat underside (it's definitely no lifting body), and the minuscule wing surface area, I'm convinced that whatever they've tried so far was a pure ground effect vehicle. Their thinking might have been, hey, once we've got that licked, we'll worry about getting higher up. Except that getting out of the boundary layer and high up into the atmosphere involves a very different type of flying, which would explain their lack of success so far.

Mind you, Russia has taken ground effect flight further than anyone else with their Ekranoplans, particularly the KM. That was a pretty awesome vehicle, even though ten jet engines sounds a bit ridiculous.

Aseries of 120 of them were s'pose to be built but in the end only 5 were built, but Volga Shipyard still has all the jigs 'n drawings, etc & will build more to order.

The Orlenok page on The WIG Page site

The Orlenok page on at autospeed.com

Some pics:

http://www.airforce.ru/aircraft/ekranoplans/Orle no k.jpg

http://www.airforce.ru/aircraft/ekranoplans/orle no k4.jpg

http://us1.webpublications.com.au/static/images/ ar ticles/i13/1306_5mg.jpg

http://www.se-technology.com/wig/html/image.php? co de=0&id=413

well... it says nowhere that it is UNABLE to land on water... - in emergencies...
and.. it DOES state that it will be equipped with "the latest flight control technology" - which in my opinion means that it most likely WILL be able to detect rouge waves...

I haven't come across any articles describing the effects of waves or similar on the ground effect, but this page has quite a bit info on the effect itself

"World's most recent press release..." is probably more like it.

I heard of this kind of thing many years ago.

The Soviets were way ahead of the game in this area as long ago as the 60's, they were called Caspian Sea Monsters because they were tested in the Caspian Sea, and looked like neither plane, nor boat.

This web site has a very nice detailed article complete with many photos.

They were quite the strange beasties back then, heres another look at them.

And heres the WIG site (WIG is an abbreviation of Wing In Ground-effect), which is also a nice comprehensive resource about these interesting vehicles.

The model maker Revell even made a plastic model kit of one, some years ago.

Apparently, this type of aircraft hasn't found it's commercial niche yet, but it looks like this new application might work.

Ekrano/wig-planes