US Navy to order unique aircraft in Saratov, Russia (UFO-shaped)

Russia Journal Daily ^ | April 23, 2004

[Shermy]

SARATOV - The US Navy Department intends to subsidize the development of an advanced Russian aircraft, which will eventually be extinguishing forest fires on US territory. This UFO-shaped flying machine is currently being designed by the Saratov aviation concern.

The Saratov aircraft enterprise, which is located in Russia's Volga region, started assembling UFO-shaped flying machines in the 1990s; however, this R&D project was then moth-balled because of financial snags.

Many aircraft companies all over the world did their best to design similar flying machines. However, Saratov's aircraft designers managed to come with some unusual engineering solutions, also building a flying-saucer mock-up.

Designers managed to overcome vibration being caused by turbulence flows, after opting for the flying-saucer concept; this problem was also solved with the help of some other know-how. This flying machine is called the EKIP (Russian acronym, Ecology and Progress).

Moreover, the hovercraft's special coating enhances lift by 40 percent (with the help of turbulence flows). Consequently, the EKIP's payload accounts for only 40-45 percent of its mass; meanwhile the relevant aircraft ratio is 20-25 percent.

The EKIP boasts some other unique specifications; for example, it can transport 100-ton loads over several thousand km at 500-700 kph and at 8-13-km altitudes. This unique hovercraft can skim along at 160 kph just above the surface.

Many foreign companies had repeatedly suggested establishing a joint venture together with the Saratov factory in the late 1990s; however, the US naval-aviation research center alone offered acceptable terms, the Saratovskiye Vesti newspaper writes.

Specific contract terms were not disclosed. According to the aircraft factory's general director Alexander Yermishin, Russia will retain EKIP copyright. The market will be divided, after batch production gets underway, with the United States paying dividends to Russia for every EKIP aircraft, Yermishin added.

First of all, the US side needs the EKIP remotely piloted aircraft for fighting fires and coping with natural calamities, Yermishin said in conclusion.

[aruanan]

Why not license the thing from the Russians and build it over here? Or do the Russians want a a techno pit into which they can sluice billions of investment dollars?

[Aeronaut]

[skinkinthegrass]

please..me, too! :)

[skinkinthegrass]

Thanks.. :)

[Rebelbase]

[Solamente]

OK, I'll type it out and either privately send or post it in this thread.

[BenLurkin]

It is cute but something just doesn't look right.

[Solamente]

I just added you to the ping list. Back to you in a few hours.

[Cvengr]

But they came 'to serve man'....

[Flightdeck]

Thanks; can't wait.

[Rebelbase]

IT'S A COOKBOOK!

[dalereed]

On a private tour through the warehouses of the Smithsonian in Silver Springs years ago there was a navy experimental, among the hundreds of aircraft never known by the public to exist, that was about 8-10' in diamater made of tiny stick trusses covered with fabric and looked just like a flying saucer that was made in the late 40s or early 50s.

On another note, when I was in high school in Los Angeles in 54 or 55 durring lunch period at what I would estimate to be at about 15FL I watched what I would call a flying saucer being chased by 2 F-104s? for about 20 minutes until I had to go back to class.

The saucer would remain stationary and the jetes would come at it from 2 sides and before they got there it would dart upward and off to the side at probably 5 times the speed of the approaching jets. This happened over and over for the whole time that I watched it.

I wasn't asn alarmist and just thought it interesting and assumed that since it was military jets involved thqt saying anything to anyone wouldn't serve any purpose.

[Tennessee_Bob]

Did it look like this? (the one at the museum, that is)

[dalereed]

No but that one was there also.

The one that I was describing was for one pilot and had a fan in the center for propultion and lift and was only about 8 feet in diameter and about 2 feet thick in the center with a bubble canopy for the pilot. I didn't try to lift it but the way it ws built it probably didn't weigh more than 400 pounds.

[Tennessee_Bob]

Here's the company's website:

http://www.ekip-aviation-concern.com/

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

There have been over the years various attempts to make a "flying wing" type of aircraft (where the fuselage is basically a wing), and some of them even flew. This is sure the most flying saucerish flying wing I have ever seen. It would be incredible to see it fly. I wonder how powerful the engines will have to be?

Moreover, the hovercraft's special coating enhances lift by 40 percent (with the help of turbulence flows). Consequently, the EKIP's payload accounts for only 40-45 percent of its mass; meanwhile the relevant aircraft ratio is 20-25 percent.

The EKIP boasts some other unique specifications; for example, it can transport 100-ton loads over several thousand km at 500-700 kph and at 8-13-km altitudes. This unique hovercraft can skim along at 160 kph just above the surface.

The structural/engine weight and the fuel weight of the craft are overhead, and this basically claims that that weight is very low for the cargo capacity. Looks to me like a claim of a very high lift-to-drag ratio, combined with a high structural efficiency.

And as such, an enormously valuable characteristic. Unless of course it can only be made out of mockingbird tongues . . .

[LibKill]

Eh. I've seen some mighty weird things in my time, but until I actually meet some (outer space) aliens and drink some beer with them I will remain skeptical.

[Quix]

SKEPTICISM can be a VERY healthy thing.

Especially regarding anything

--the government is connected with
--satan is connected with
--that has a significant potential to manipulate vast masses of people.

But a TYPE II error is no safer or more righteous than a TYPE I error.

Both can be plenty troublesome.

[LibKill]

You bring the space aliens, I'll bring the beer. :)

But none of those chest-bursting aliens from the ALIEN movie, please.

[Quix]

Thanks.

Not interested in getting very close to the aliens, myself.

Prefer a low alcohol fruit flavored wine with low tanin content.

Beer tastes like medicine to me.

Anyway--If my study of the subject has any validity at all, they are really rachetting up the graduated, incremental disclosures more and more rapidly now. New details are coming out all the time.

Still very hard for me to guess what is disinformation and what isn't.