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Ground Effect Flying Boat
Stalke writes "A company called Flightship has produced the worlds first commercial flying boat that operates on the principle of ground-effect. I first saw these types of craft on TLC when they showed a huge soviet landing craft based upon the same principle. The first commercial version of this craft has a capacity of only 6 passengers, but a larger version called the Dragon Clipper will seat 40! Check out the videos on the site, this thing really is a sight to see."
If this gets to the stetes, would it be under the FAA? Will the pilot be required to have an aircraft pilot's license? The article is short on details, I was just curious if anybody has an answer.
geek page at KY speaks
Nope. I got to the site fine. Your connection sux.
yup! not even four posts, and it down.
flightship.net/technology has information on how this thing works...
Any additional info on why it works would be good to read.
hit reload!
I hope their boats don't crash as easily as their website, huh? :)
What is ground effect, you ask? Karma Whore to the rescue!
From the company (might be slashdotted sooner or later)
A good site
More info, no pics.
Sunland ventures in to sea/air transport.
By Mohamed Ali
Sunland Group of Companies is introducing a totally new transport vessel called Flightship to the Maldives at the end of this year. Flightship, as the name denotes, is a combination of a flight and a ship! Flightship is a Singapore/Australian shipbuilder specialising in the design and manufacture of ultra-high speed marine craft.
There are two sizes of these vessels, one with a capacity of six passengers and the other with a capacity of 40 passengers. The Flightship FS8 is a craft that carries 6 passengers and luggage (plus 2 crew) in total safety and quiet comfort, at speeds up to 85 knots. After only a short taxi on the water to build up air pressure under the manta-ray-shaped craft, the FS8 gently lifts itself up to 3.5 metres above the tops of waves and flies away.
At a press briefing organised by Sunland, the members of the media were told that the FS8 is technically known as a Wing in Ground Effect craft (WIG). It is the same principle as hovercraft but the height of a Flightship above waves is much greater and less engine power is needed. The FS8 vessels are very much cheaper and safer to operate than an aircraft and certainly faster and quieter than a hovercraft. Ocean conditions of up to 2-metre waves would not affect the perfectly flat ride of these craft, said Sunland.
Sunland Group's Managing Director, Shabeer Ahmed, said that the Flightships that Sunland is introducing to the Maldives towards the end of this year would have only a six-passenger capacity and therefore would not be viable for wider use. He said that the FS8 model aircraft would be first used to transfer tourists to Sunland's resort islands during the peak season of the year. Shabeer said that only when the company gets the FS40 aircraft, which has a 40-passenger capacity within two to three years, would it be able to use the crafts on a wider scale.
"Since the FS8 model aircraft is something altogether new to Maldives, we are bringing them on a trial basis," Shabeer said. Sunland is getting four of these Flightships, which travel three meters above water. The company will be spending US$ 3.2 million on the acquisition of these four aircraft. Each Flightship costs about US$ 800,000. A Flightship with a capacity of 40-passengers would cost US$ 5 million.
After the trail period, where Sunland would sue the first four Flightships (each with a capacity of only six passengers, to carry tourists to and from Sunland's resorts; the company hopes to invest a further five million dollars to get bigger Flightships with a capacity of 40 passengers. This would enable Sunland to open the Flightships for passengers and tourists from other resorts and even for locals. The potential for Flightships to expand to various corners of the country is immense, both as a mode of transport for tourists and that for locals. In a country with a population fragmented by the seas, Maldives stands to gain a lot if the trials of Sunland's Flightships turn out to be successful. In such a scenario, one would not be surprised if the Flightships of Sunland were to successfully compete with seaplane carriers such as Maldivian Air Taxi and Trans Maldivian Airways. @
There have been WIGs for 'comercial sale', on a per customer design and build scale. Some companies such as Airfoil have standard designs for airfoil types and construct them for sale.
At the moment Flightship dont apear to be offering anything for imediate sale. And you have to register with them just to get a sales inquiry aplication form.
At the moment, I'm going to class Flightship as intresting vapourware.
Here's a good site on how the ground effect works: Ground Effect
(they have been used to go over land as well - deserts or anywhere large and relativly flat.)
I do wonder about the site though it does seem odd to have comments like ...Since the current tends to drag scuba divers at the end of the dive out to the open water, each team should take along a parachute. It is only in this manner that the crew of the boat can be certain of finding lost divers.
"
"
now to me that doesn't sound to promotional. Elaine R.
What happens if on a calm summers eve a freak storm arises. Now the waves are a staggering 3 meters. We all swim back or what.
From the article:
After the trail period, where Sunland would sue the first four Flightships
They just bought the boats and they're already seeking litigation. tsk
Some interesting info here: http://home.mira.net/~radacorp/ground_effect.html
I still don't see any real advantage of this design since I first heard about it. I can see its potential over, say, arctic snow fields, or over hard-packed desert, where conventional vehicles may encounter trouble, but low-level flight over water? What's the trouble with good old boats?
I suspect that the primary use for this is simply to set new records - The Worlds Fastest Ground Effect Vehicle and the like. Commercially... well, I don't know about you, but as someone who enjoys spending time on the open water, I don't know if I want a bunch of pseudo-aircraft zipping all over the place - the water is an inherently "slow" transportation medium, and there are just too many accidents as is with traditional watercraft, without any rich fool flying along at just the right height to decapitate me and my passengers.
Hrmmm.... um, well, maybe, but if so, the main picture on the featured site is NOT what the site is talking about.
A hovercraft has a plenum chamber, i.e. a cushion of air created by a vacuum or fan blowing DOWN into an enclosed, flexible area, usually called the "skirt". See this picture or these for the typical setup.
What this seems to be is simply an airplane without landing gear. Wow.
note: you can read more about hovercrafts here - though it's aimed for a younger audience.
It's Linux.
The site www.mondaytimes.com.mv is running Apache/1.3.12 (Unix) FrontPage/4.0.4.3 on Linux.
Check out this site for more info. I've also seen Discovery shows about this.
I think ground effect craft are the perfect cargo planes/boats of the future.
They are faster than boats and much more efficiant than planes. They do not need runaways. they can have wide bodies and large volume cargo holds.
Of course they can only go trough water, but you should not be using cargo planes over land anyway, you should be using high speed trains.
They say that Boeing and Airbus are both thinking of developing super large cargo planes, they should just stop and concentrate on ground effect craft.
I guess one of the costs of ground effect craft would be that naval navigation will have to change to allow for large fast low flying things, but that can be done.
Also maybe the flying boats can be made to fly higher to skip over things that are in the way.
A really neat page on WIGs discusses a little-known fact: That the largest aircraft ever built, Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose, wasn't actually a failure -- it was just late for the WW II sky. It was built to rely on ground effect for rapid stealth delivery of troops. There is reason to believe it was never intended to fly outside of ground effect, despite the fact that Hughes took a reputational beating for failing to fly at high altitude. This may have been a ploy to keep the stealth characteristics of low-flying WIGs obscured. An entire WIG industry would render any nation with large populations quite formidable -- especially if WIG vehicles used carbon composite bodies rather tha metal skin.
Seastead this.
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.
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
Short overview of ekranoplan creation and development
Maybe it's because I just got back from the movies, but the first thing I thought of when I saw this was a guy in a green mask flying around on it, cackling wildly and throwing fire extinguisher balls at people.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The linked story is actually about a group having purchased 4 of them, presumably Flightship's first sale, but a sale nonetheless. Possibly still vapor since they haven't been delivered, but it sounds like they've already made the sale and received the money to build them.
How does the pilot maintain the necessary altitude? It seems like a very small range to stay in.
There once was a craft from the Maldives
that could seat three men and their wives
have some advice for free
don't be one of the three,
or you'll regret it the rest of your lives
It is not a boat
Summer waves never touch skin
it is not a plane
An order is not a sale even if money has exchanged hands.
Please be patient and try again in a few seconds.
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"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
Enterpreuner Dean Kamen announced his new personal transporter known only as "Git" and Genger which works by Ground Effect. This follows the massive failure of the Segway Human Transporter
Desi Noise, Live!
Why are these craft so expensive? They use well known technology, and are basically low and slow small aircraft. $800 000 for one six passenger craft is a piss take. $5 mill ($US I assume) for a 40 pax is (or should be) a joke.
The first URL is already rejecting me because of high traffic. Here's a Google mirror.
I C: www.flightship.net/+flightship&hl=en
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:7cg6pQsh69
>> After the trail period, where Sunland would sue the first four Flightships
Come on.. really, do you expect the Flightships to appear in court?
Anyone tried this on land? Ill bet, one could make a desert verhicle quite savely. And the Arabs can organize aerofoil-pod races in theire backyard.
If no-one else is gonna say it then I will.
<Jonny Bravo>
WIGGY
</Jonny Bravo>
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
I did, like 500 times, and I still get nothing...
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
There is one of these that operates on Narrahgansett Bay, where I live in Rhode Island. I should say, operated, because last summer it hit a wave and crashed. The pilot and passenger were bruised, but OK - the Coast Guard managed to pull them out before the thing sank.
here
After the trail period, where Sunland would sue the first four Flightships
Maybe next time they should use a trained monkey to edit the story.
Seriously, though, do these things need to have a specific balance of weight when they're in flight? And also, does their wing dip down when they turn? because if it does, it would be really easy for them to catch a wave with the wing and go splat.
After Ground Effect, they will have learnt this one by the end of the day !
Ground effect craft are not new. They've been around for decades. The primaraly work by traping air underneath the "wing" and using that to create lift. As a result, they cannot "fly" very far off the ground. The FAA ruled quite a while ago that a craft that has to stay in "ground effect" to create lift is not an aircraft and thus isn't regulated by them. A hovercraft actually falls in the same catagory because it to flys in ground effect, it just does it in a completely different way.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
Thought it was a damn good idea. They built a huge one for troop and cargo transport. It has actually flown too. It was featured on WINGS a while back as I recall. However the fall of the Soviet Union and lack of Russian capitol killed the program. These vessels can be built to very large proportions and cost much less to operate than a plane such as the C-5 Galaxy. They could be used to ship very large cargos across the oceans in very short times.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
The first version of this craft was called the Flarecraft. It was in an issue of Popular Science about 5 years ago, and looked a heck of alot cooler than this one does. Much more stealth-fighter-ish :)
What's sad about the Soviet WIG program was the fact these vehicles were perfect for fast movements across the Baltic Sea to invade the Scandinavian Peninsula. Imagine moving an amphibious strike force at several times the speed of even hovercraft.
Unfortunately, the designers of the Ekranoplan were too closely tied to Khruschev (sp?), and when Brenzhnev took over, the Ekranoplan idea died a quick and untimely death.
With the application of modern technology, an ekranoplan could be perfect for island-hopping operations in the Less Antillies in the Caribbean Sea.
All these advancements are neat, from printable LCD monitors ..to flying boats, to things connecting to things ...but Where are the flying cars? How come they haven't come up with a safe/efficient way of allowing having cars to fly ..I'd love to flying in to work and avoid some traffic !
[alk]
I've been a pilot of flying boats for years. Please don't call this a flying boat, it's not. You guys get upset if I interchange the terms cracker and hacker. I get upset when you confuse ground effect vehicle and flying boat.
This is an old technology. more information here.
Yep up until a few years ago channel hovercraft were regulated by the civil aviation people, but they eventually saw sense & now they are regulated by the maritime authority.
I've used it before for slashdotted sites
The Flightship FS8 is a craft that carries 6 passengers and luggage (plus 2 crew)
:)
6+2=8. FS8. Ok, makes sense.
the FS40 aircraft, which has a 40-passenger capacity
Ummm, does that mean zero crew? Maybe they only plan to fly the SF40 in the bermuda triangle
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Order your Soviet-era WIG ship today (from autospeed.com):
"Now called the Volga Shipyard, the Orlyonok is apparently still being developed as a commercial search and rescue craft. In fact, it appears that the Orlyonok can be ordered in either cargo-carrying (50 tons with a 1500km range) or in passenger carrying (30 people and a 3000km range) versions - the yard lists it as a production model!"
A normal airplane can take advantage of the same principles simply by flying low to the ground. However, aviation restrict this practice. The WIG may qualify as a marine vehicle and bypass these rules.
so what happens when seas are rough, according to the article it can take like 6 foot waves.. what happens with hurricane winds and 35 foot waves?
;))
seems like they're spending an aweful lot of money to send some rich tourists off as guinea pigs during "peak season"
although they do look cool, like the ornithopters from Dune, if they were sturdy
they seem in-expensive at $800,000 (although i could never afford one,e ven if i saved all my change for 3,000 years) considering a harrier is like a billion or so (ask Pepsi, they would know
Scroll down to Freak waves.
The fundamental issue is this. The vehicle has to be close to the water. As a result, running into a single large wave is a problem. The larger the vehicle is, the larger a wave it can handle. But the larger the vehicle is, the more it costs to build and the more it needs to transport to be profitable.
So you need quiet water which a lot of people want to cross fast. But the water has to be a lot quieter than you think. You see every so often several different waves of different frequencies fall into sync, and form one really large wave. This may only happen to you once per year, but even once per year is far too often if it happens under a vehicle that you needs several years to pay off.
So you make a bigger craft. Fine, but now it is going to take you even longer to pay off. There is no practical limit to the size of a freak wave. Bigger ones happen more rarely, but they still happen.
As a result this kind of vehicle, which by nature needs to be very delicate and very expensive, has always wound up on the wrong side of the cost curve. People have looked into them in several markets, but they are just too easy to sink in a freak accident to be commercially viable.
Of course regular ships run into these, and occasionally sink from them as well. But they don't need to be so light, nor do they hit waves as fast, and therefore ships cost less and can take more wave. this makes the risk acceptably small.
A similar product is being offered by Amphistar. I drive by their hangar everyday in Norfolk, VA. But I have only seen an XtremeXplorer outside once. The XtremeXplorer is in regular use in the Bahamas (according to the web site). And it looks like a lot of their pilots are Russian. They even claim to have the pilot of the "Caspian Sea Monster" (the 747 sized plane as seen on TLC). He even gives operator instruction classes, so bring your Visa card.
http://www.amphistar.com/
And the only thing gained is...it can go fast! Wow, just like a real airplane!
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Here is a WIG (wing in ground effect) craft built by a hovercraft hobbyist. It sure looks like a lot of fun. Also, I found out a while back that the FAA doesn't regulate WIG craft, so you don't need a pilots license as long as it can only fly in ground effect and not as a regular aircraft.
It's a bus!
It's a plane!
It's a boat!
Please come up with a decision soon.
When I was little I used to ride on these a lot of the time. I'm not sure if it was a proper WIG craft but it's basically like a normal boat with three fins sticking downward that can do something like 50 mph. I was told they worked on some sort of aerodynamic principle anyway. I thik they were called 'Rocket' (well, ok in rus that's raketta or close enough in roman characters)
Slashdot effect does it again. I just see the MS IIS "web site is busy" page. I hope they don't run the ship's computers on any MS product.
These are even more commonly called hydroplanes. You take a plane and create a method in which it can coast over or land on water. This has been done already using a variety of methods.
WebMaster:
BinFeeds
XXX Thumbnailed Image Newsgroups but
I remember seeing these, although I think a bit smaller, on a show called beyond 2000 at least 10 years ago.
I've done some research on soviet GE craft, and this one looks like an exact copy of an early russian portotype. Soviet engineers have done a lot of progress in this area (including huge cargo planes as well as a virtually motorless craft which is accelerateed by a land-based rail). Unfortunately the craft never went into mass production, and now we see yet another american company exploit the work of brilliant soviet scientists.
Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee.
After the trail period, where Sunland would sue the first four Flightships (each with a capacity of only six passengers, to carry tourists to and from Sunland's resorts; the company hopes to invest a further five million dollars to get bigger Flightships with a capacity of 40 passengers.
What is a trail period? After they're done with the trial period, they're planning to sue the ships! I never knew one could sue Flightships. Maybe they meant use.
Check out Moller International. They made some UFO-like ground effect vehicles in the past and now are making a vertical take-off and landing vehicle that they hope will replace the car.
When trying to access there site I get:
To view the Flightship website we recommend a browser version 4.0 or higher. Updating your system will allow you to fully enjoy all the content on the Flightship website.
I use opera 6.0, evidently they think that 6 is less than 4. Why do I suddenly have doubts about thier engineering skills.
So, if it's this difficult to operate a ship safely at 55 mph, what additional precautions need to be taken to go to several hundred mph over the water?
http://www.amphistar.com
http://home.mira.net/~radacorp/ (not commercial, but noteworthy)
http://home.t-online.de/home/02431981680-0001/hom
http://www.airfoil.de/
"World's most recent press release..." is probably more like it.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
>> Eat a dick, linux whiner. You're fucking stupid.
Actually I am using opera for Windows. I have used both IE and Netscape but I prefer Opera. Its small, fast and does everything I want it to do.
I can't beleive I am responding to a flame by an AC.
Dr. Lippisch, the WW2 German aircraft designer who pioneered the delta wing invented the first aircraft of this type many years ago. As usual, The US and the USSER simply stole from the German scientists.
80% the length of a 747 but fater. Only the 1st 4 were built. Volga shipyard's still got or the jig 'n stuff & will build more to order.
Here's a good article on them.
Here's a close up pic, notice the twin 23mm cannon dorsal turret
Here's a pic of 2 flying along side by side
Here's a rear 3.4 view
Top view
Front on, on its beaching bogies
Unloading a armoured fighting vehicle
On the tarmac
3 way drawing
Though it will most likely be capable of gliding considerable distance with no engine power.
Not exactly. Don't forget that it is only a few feet above the water in most cases. Thus, without engine power, it may have the best glide ratio on the planet... but you can't glide far when the water is only 10 feet below you.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
So, this can do 85kts?
From , I quote:
"By 1962 a craft fitted with 4 foot skirts moved at 50 knots in calm seas, 40 knots in seas with waves of 4 to 5 feet! This was much faster than most surface ships. Just as important, the craft was operating at twice its original weight with no increase in lift power. Within 10 years newer hovercraft, 50 times heavier and able to travel above 60 knots carried a third of all passengers and cars across the English Channel."
Whoop-de-do.
mark
No offense, but any body who's read popular science has a jump on our boy by about 2 years or so. At least it's mildly better than a post about an editor and his dog book.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Remember the Spruce Goose? It's only a ground effect aircraft. Never was designed with enough power to really climb out of ground effect and the only time it ever flew, it had to stay in ground effect to remain airborne.
As a pilot who owns my own small airplane, the very idea of ground effect aircraft is a very scary proposition. The possibility of cartwheeling it and turning the vehicle into an expanding collection of loose parts is too real.
There's a saying in aviation that airspeed equals life, and alititude (above ground level) equals life insurance. I like to think also that airspeed is your sex partner and altitude is your best friend.
While I agree this is far from news, did you even bother to read the artical? This is not a hovercraft. Hovercraft require skirts to operate. This vehical does not. Hovercraft require vertically mounted engines to create a cusion of air. This vehical does not. Somehow, I don't think the writers of your quote were quite envisioning a water skimming aircraft, but more like a giant, skirted behemoth with lots of engines. Oh, a hovercraft can transverse land and water. This vehical, though faster and more effcient, can't. What's new? Beyond the general theory, everything ace.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Like those brilliant soviet scientist "innovated" the British design of the Concord? Riiight... That's them.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
so much for MICROSOFT IIS
HEAD http://www.flightship.net/products/
403 Access Forbidden
Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 00:28:51 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Content-Length: 3419
Content-Type: text/html
Client-Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 00:26:59 GMT
Client-Peer: 168.144.186.234:80
...
pretty much every page on their site says:
Please be patient and try again in a few seconds.
The web site you are
trying to access is experiencing an extremely high volume of traffic.
Please try the following:
Click the Refresh button, or try again later.
If the situation persists, you may want to contact the webmaster of this
site and advise them to upgrade to a dedicated hosting plan.
*sigh*
HINT: reloading 50 times in quick succession will get you the page!
get a real web server, please.
I don't think this is new cuz those ducks in Duck Tales used it like 10 years ago a Goldenbook.
Hacking the Network
From: http://www.tv.cbc.ca/cgi-bin/programs/extra.cgi?SC =NT&file=NT20000709.html
"The Caspian Sea Monster - repeat
Broadcast Date: Jul 09, 2000
THE CASPIAN SEA MONSTER ON THE NATURE OF THINGS, Sunday, July 9 at 5pm
It looks like a hybrid of a boat and a plane, was designed amid complete secrecy by the Russian military, and may well represent the future of intercontinental travel. On Sunday, July 9 at 5 p.m., CBC Television's THE NATURE OF THINGS with David Suzuki examines the Ekranoplan, an extraordinary vehicle that has been built to fly a few feet above water, traveling long distances at high speed and for low cost.
Dreamed up by an engineering genius for the Russian military, the Ekranoplan, nicknamed 'The Caspian Sea Monster' by the Pentagon, underwent decades of building and testing against a backdrop of an escalating Cold War, until the collapse of Communism led to its production being halted. But good ideas do not disappear forever, and today the Ekranoplan is being constructed for largely civilian purposes. It may not be long before we are traveling overseas mere inches over oceans.
The Ekranoplan was the brainchild of a young scientist and former pilot Rostislav Evgenyevich Alexiev, who began work on it in the 1950s. Alexiev, who invented the modern hydrofoil, wanted to go one step further. He wanted to bring the vehicle completely out of the water to limit resistance. In October of 1966, in trials on the Caspian Sea, an Ekranoplan flew for the first time. The trial was a great success. However, the end of the Cold War saw the Russians put a stop to the construction programme. Now the West has begun to show considerable interest in seeing the vehicle developed.
There are issues and design problems yet to be overcome, but increasingly the Ekranoplan looks like it may find a place in overseas travel in the future. Within 10 years, commercial 300-seaters may well be a reality.
The Caspian Sea Monster is produced and directed by Hamish Barbour. Executive producer is Grant McKee. It is an Ideal World production. Executive producer of THE NATURE OF THINGS is Michael Allder."
Actually a WIG has LOUSY glide ratio.
First off, IAAAE - I am an Aero Engineer. Glide ratio is largely a function of the wing's efficiency - and that is almost entirely a function of the ratio of wingspan to wing "chord" - in otherwords, the ratio of width to length of the wing. (Ever wonder why a sailplane has such long thin wings?) But to get a good ground effect, you need a short stubby wing, not a long thin one - you need a longer surface to "trap" the cushion of air underneath. So wing efficiency and ground effect are actually mutually exclusive. That's the main reason that you cannot get far off the ground in a WIG vehicle. The ONLY reason it gets up is the ground effect - you simply don't have enough lift otherwise. (You can zoom for brief distances, but there is so much drag due to the lousy efficiency that you cannot sustain high flight.)
So if you remember that glide ratio is related to wing efficiency, and that wing efficiency is awful in a WIG, you get a lousy glide ratio in these things.
But as "mpe" mentions, you can easily settle down on the water and slow down to become a boat.
One other interesting fact about these things is worth mentioning. If you see the pics of the Russian monster WIG (sometimes called the "Caspian Sea Monster", due to its extreme size), you'll notice the engines at the FRONT, up high on a winglike structure. Why? Well, to get "airborne", you have to get up to speed. But water drag is so high, and the plane is so big, that they cannot simply accelerate up to flying speed. So the only way to get enough air under the wings to get out of the water is to blow it directly there - so they mount the engines in front of the wing, so that the airstream can be directed under the wing to boost the plane off the water at a relatively low speed - after which they can start really accelerating.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
A few ground-effect vechicles were operated by the Navy during the Vietnam war. The were at least four of them in the beginning. By the time the war wound down, only two were left. The other two were destroyed by big booby traps. They were used on one of the rivers, and could move from river to rice paddy with a fair amount of ease. They were used much like helicopters to insert and extract a small platoon of troops.
http://www.montypython.net/scripts/phrasebk.php
Now I can move to Miami and start that import business.
testtesttesttest this is a test a test a test a test