That was fascinating - I'd seen old photos of the thing rusting in a field, but I'd never heard the actual backstory. They did make at least one other attempt at a huge ground-effect vehicle, and...
That was fascinating - I'd seen old photos of the thing rusting in a field, but I'd never heard the actual backstory. They did make at least one other attempt at a huge ground-effect vehicle, and a single model that made it into service, but I don't know of any that went into actual mass production.
I assume there's a reason that ground-effect vehicles aren't as well suited to their tasks as an actual ship or an actual plane, but I haven't taken the time to read up on why. I had the opportunity to do a short trip in a passenger hovercraft, which was great fun, so I'd be all about seeing more unusual forms of transport out there in the world!
If you're interested in the subject, you should check out the other two ekranoplan videos I have posted here: Real Engineering did a video on that "Caspian sea monster" that you mentioned, and...
If you're interested in the subject, you should check out the other two ekranoplan videos I have posted here:
That was fascinating - I'd seen old photos of the thing rusting in a field, but I'd never heard the actual backstory. They did make at least one other attempt at a huge ground-effect vehicle, and a single model that made it into service, but I don't know of any that went into actual mass production.
I assume there's a reason that ground-effect vehicles aren't as well suited to their tasks as an actual ship or an actual plane, but I haven't taken the time to read up on why. I had the opportunity to do a short trip in a passenger hovercraft, which was great fun, so I'd be all about seeing more unusual forms of transport out there in the world!
If you're interested in the subject, you should check out the other two ekranoplan videos I have posted here:
Real Engineering did a video on that "Caspian sea monster" that you mentioned, and Mustard has another video on ekranoplans as well; Both of which talk a bit more about some of their disadvantages, and why the giant ones stopped being developed by the USSR.
p.s. ?tag=mustard and ?tag=real_engineering for more videos on some other unique aircraft too. :)