The Next Spruce Goose

Milt Thanatos writes "For those of us who have been patiently waiting for WIGE (wing-in-ground-effect) ever since the first stories leaked out of the Soviet Union, this may be it. Check out: this site. Note that, unlike the Soviet WIGE, this version can take to altitude above rough seas or dry land."

Comments

Russia already built this

[austad]

Back in 1960, the Russians developed the Ekranoplan. We saw it in satellite photos because the thing was too damn big to fit inside a building. It was over 2 football fields long, weighed over 540 tons, and could reach speeds of more than 500 knots. It could also fly up to 20 meters above the surface. Back in the early 1990's, we finally found out what that thing in the pictures actually was. Around 20 of them were built, but for some reason they cancelled the program.

There's a good picture and some info here. The History channel had a show on this thing a few weeks ago too, and it made me wonder why we didn't have anything like that. It's an unbelievably fast and efficient way to carry large amounts of people and cargo.

Re:Reliability problems.

[blufive]

What happens when a engine fails

Same as any other plane: it slows down a bit. Look at the picture, it's got at least 4 engines (assuming they're not using coax props with multiple engines in each nacelle). If one packs up, it's not a major problem.

There is no margin for error.

Yes there is. 20 feet, at least :). Seriously, when it's cruising, it's not going to be running at full power, so they just throttle the others up a bit, and put up with any loss of speed.

What about rogue waves? It's crusing at 20 feet, and a 40 foot wave pops up?

The document says "as low as 20 feet". If the weather's a bit ropy, they fly a little higher.

For that matter, how calm does the ocean need to be for the ground effect to work?

Not very. What counts is how high your wing is above the "ground". The ground effect starts to be measurable at an altitude of half your wingspan. For it to really work, you want to be somewhat lower. If the ocean is really rough, things will get rather bumpy, though. This thing is projected to have a wingspan of something like 150 metres. That's BIG. It would be getting serious groung effect with its wing 20 metres above the water. That's 65 feet, folks.

Re:Reliability problems.

[MrNixon]

It says right at the bottom of the article that the pland can climb to high altitudes to leave rough seas. Ground effect simply increases efficiency and range.

Re:Reliability problems.

[foobar104]

What happens when a engine fails when its crusing at 20 feet and an engine fails?

A basic understanding of inertia is needed here. When a plane loses an engine-- or all the engines, for that matter-- it doesn't just drop out of the sky. It starts to slow down a bit, but only very gradually. If you lose an engine on a large multi-engine plane, you can just bump the throttles on the other engine or engines up a little and, if necessary, adjust the rudder to keep the aircraft from yawing due to off-axis thrust. It's no big deal, really. Several times I've been on commercial flights that lose one engine. If you're close to your destination, the ATCs simply move you ahead in the pattern to get you down a little faster. The only real concern is the possibility that you might, in a two-engine aircraft, lose the other engine.

As far as I know-- I'm no expert-- every civilian or military multi-engine aircraft in use today can sustain flight on just one engine. Even the big boys, like 747s, can maintain altitude, descend, and land with all the engines out but one.