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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."
Here's a good site on how the ground effect works: Ground Effect
Check out this site for more info. I've also seen Discovery shows about 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
> Also maybe the flying boats can be made to fly higher to skip over things that are in the way.
:)
The point of this 'flying boat' is that it operates in ground effect, which allows the craft to produce more lift than it would normally be able. If you are going to give the craft enough power/lift to climb out of ground effect to "skip over things", you kind of defeat the whole point of the craft. It is more efficient for aircraft to fly at higher altitudes, air is less dense, and fuel burn is much less, and you can take advantage of winds aloft. Operating a long haul aircraft just above ground effect is probably the least efficient may to run, least range and greatest fuel burn, not to mention you cant go all that fast. As an example of that, take a theoritcal passenger jet. Aircraft measure speed in "Indicated Airspeed", which is the relative wind the skin of the aircraft is experiencing. At sea level, indicated and true airspeeds are about the same. Now take our jet, it has a Vne (Never exceed velocity) of 330 kts. So at sea level, (negating wind), i can only make around 300ish kts groundspeed (and only over sea, in the US below 18,000 ft, you cannot exceed 250 kts). Not bad you say? Consider that at altitude, you can operate an aircraft below the 330 kt limit, but because the less dense air (less wind == less indicated airspeed), your actual groundspeed can be 500 kts, and you are getting better fuel economy.
These ground effect craft will probably due well for short haul stuff, but with the unpredictable nature of the ocean, i dont see them gaining wide use for trans oceanic operations. Much safer and efficient to be flying at FL330