Looks like something out of a Hollywood movie.................
Posted on 01/27/2012 7:51:43 AM PST by Hojczyk
In the thick of the Cold War, the Soviet Union built an immense vessel to carry their troops across the seas and into Western Europe.
Equipped with nuclear warheads and able to blast across the sea at 340 mph, the Lun-class Ekranoplane; part plane, part boat, and part hovercraft — is a Ground Effect Vehicle (GEV).
A GEV takes advantage of an aeronautical effect that allows it to lift off with an immense amount of weight, but limits its flight to 16 feet above the waves. Its altitude can never be greater than the length of the wings.
Think of a large seabird, like a pelican, cruising inches from the water and not needing to flap its wings.
The only complete Ekranoplane now sits on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
While there is talk of refitting the Lun-class and getting the GEV back in the fleet, it's now rusting away, and was spotted by aviation blogger Igor113 who posted these pictures to his blog.
Check out pictures and facts on the Soviet's secret weapon >
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Looks like something out of a Hollywood movie.................
That is the coolest #$%&ing plane I’ve ever seen!
Russian engineers have always thought outside the box. Remarkable.
It is more a boat than a plane. Actually an interesting technology to haul stuff over water. It is not exactly as fast as jet aircraft and doesn’t have exactly as much payload as cargo boat but it is too much faster than any boat and has too much more payload than any aircraft.
You are correct, the Russians were never bound by convention. Think of the Tu-144, a concorde copy, except they had the engines side by side and faired into the fuse, as opposed to under each wing as the SST had. Obviously this led to seriously stability and vibration issues culminating in a crash at the Paris Air Show in ‘73?’74?
It was used prinarily for the Moscow-Alma Aty run, which was done in just over three teeth rattling hours. Strange, but they were strange, but nothing was as it seemed in the Soviet Union..
That that is a plane built to put the fear of Ivan in you.
Okay, I see. That makes sense with its configuration. Still love it, though!
I designed something similar to this when I was eight years old.
Looks economical to operate... </sarc>
When the Russians build them they are either very good or deadly to everyone involved.
Russian subs are very tough but they throw safety standards out the window and sometimes they take a dive and never come up.
Thier rocket program was the gold standard but they lost quite a few comsonauts and had some really large explosions.
Just because something is unique doesnt make it useful.
Yeah but it probably gets better gas mileage than my Jeep.
Looks like it would only operate in calm seas, though.
Here is a test aircraft that carried a reactor (not to power the plane, but to test the reactor while airborne)
I had a boss who worked in radiation safety (health physics) for the project. He was involved in material tests that were carried out in Georgia. It was interesting talking to Bob Boyd about how the radiation would kill the tops of trees that were higher than the shield mounds around the radiation source they used to test aircraft parts. Here is a link about the US nuclear airplane project. Nuclear aircraft
>>>>>>>>>>>>>When the Russians build them they are either very good or deadly to everyone involved.
Russian subs are very tough but they throw safety standards out the window and sometimes they take a dive and never come up.
Thier rocket program was the gold standard but they lost quite a few comsonauts and had some really large explosions.
Just because something is unique doesnt make it useful.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As for their manned space program they lost much less crewmen comparing to NASA. Not to mention Russian space program was much more expensive. In reality, based on per mission ratio Russian cosmonaut has some 50 times more chance to survive his flight vs US counterpart.
Anyway, overall Russian safety standards are pretty inferior. It starts with a way of driving vehicles and muzzle awareness by teenage students up to operating nuclear subs and supersonic aircraft by trained professionals.
Just for example Germany loosing a couple dozen people annually drowning in rivers and lakes while Russia loosing several thousand who dies this way.
expensive=extensive
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