
The Ekranoplan Is Stranded Off a Beach - bookofjoe
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a33808381/russia-ekranoplan-plane-boat-wrecked/
======
nicoburns
The article links to recent (post-stranding) photographs of the interior by an
urban explorer: [https://www.rferl.org/a/photographer-sneaks-inside-the-
legen...](https://www.rferl.org/a/photographer-sneaks-inside-the-legendary-
soviet-ekranoplan/30777774.html)

Apparently there was a security guard, but they were asleep!

~~~
verroq
Won’t be surprised if they just bribed the guard.

~~~
throwaway0a5e
The guard's there to keep people from taking anything or vandalizing. Nerds
taking pictures isn't something he's there to stop. It probably went down
something like this:

"hey we're just here to take pictures for a magazine article, may we get a
tour of the vessel?"

"um, no"

"we can pay you for the trouble"

"um, fine"

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jetzzz
Here is drone footage of this beast:

[https://www.tiktok.com/@rusik.ibragimoff/video/6862108775214...](https://www.tiktok.com/@rusik.ibragimoff/video/6862108775214632198)

~~~
bookofjoe
This is fantastic — thanks very much for finding/posting the link.

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aww_dang
The article refers to the "Caspian Sea Monster" as "the Ekranoplan" as if
there haven't been any other ekranoplans built. It is certainly the largest
example, but I found this usage strange.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-
effect_vehicle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-effect_vehicle)

~~~
masklinn
Likewise. Erkanoplan is a generic russian term for ground-effect vehicles, but
the article talks specifically about the sole completed Lun-class (MD-160).

The USSR had an other Lun planned ("Spasatel", which was intended as a mobile
field hospital but was not completed due to the fall of the USSR), as well as
a bunch of other models in prototyping, development or active use (Orlyonok
having been pretty much the only somewhat successful one, but also much more
flexible than Lun: Orlyonok can fly way above ground-effect altitude).

------
dang
If curious see also previous Ekranoplan threads:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24152959](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24152959)

2013
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6230218](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6230218)

2013
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5503760](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5503760)

Others?

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mcv
It's a shame these things never really took off.

And I wonder why. Fast, efficient transport sounds perfect for today. The
Caspian Sea is a limited area, but is there a reason these things can't work
on the ocean? How close to the ground does it need to fly? Are waves already a
problem?

~~~
j9461701
Theoretically you could fly over most waves, as some designs allow fleet
height equal to 1/2 wingspan - so dozens of meters of height. The issues with
ground effect vehicles are several:

A plane takes advantage of the much thinner atmosphere higher up to go farther
easier, while an ekranoplan has to plum along under an ocean of air sapping
its fuel efficiency. No GEV design I'm aware of (feel free to correct!) could
make it across any ocean without stopping for refueling, and many can't even
island-hop across the ocean. You'd need to construct refueling stations in the
middle of the ocean.

GEVs need calm, flat water to take off. This makes the above refueling
stations even more challenging, as any vehicle that lands to top up may not be
able to get airborne again. This seems a minor point, but it's why we
abandoned seaplanes - it's just not worth the effort of waiting for the seas
to calm when a plane on an asphalt runway is always ready to go.

GEVs are awkward to maneuver and very slow to turn, so if a pilot does happen
to see a rogue 30 meter wave up ahead he has very little he can do to avoid
it. Everyone just dies.

Taking off in light wind is difficult, as wave direction is inconsistent.
Taking off in heavy wind is a miserable, bumpy experience for the passangers.
Sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

I do think there might be something to GEVs, but it would require someone to
invent a design that combined 1) 30+ meter flight height with 2) 3000 km range
on one fuel tank. The ability to hop from bay to bay is critical to the design
becoming practical.

~~~
usrusr
> GEVs are awkward to maneuver and very slow to turn, so if a pilot does
> happen to see a rogue 30 meter wave up ahead he has very little he can do to
> avoid it. Everyone just dies.

Wouldn't most GEV be able to temporarily "jump" out of ground effect for
emergencies like that, or at least wouldn't require much change to gain that
capability? But that ability wouldn't really make a difference, not without
solving all the other issues as well.

What I could imagine, as a narrow niche, is a short range regional plane
designed to be good at utilizing ground effect on routes that are too short
for the "ascend into thinner air" trick to work out and that happen to go over
water. Not being seaplanes those wouldn't require sufficiently calm seas for
aquatic start and landing. I think that this might be able to occupy an
attractive sweet spot between the fuel economy of surface boats and the speed
of aircraft in intra-archipelago traffic. Flying slow in ground effect could
even be the missing link for creating a niche where electric flying is
economically viable. Perhaps a "plug in hybrid" that goes purely electric on
short hoops, stays purely electric on longer connections if the sea is
sufficiently calm and that can spin up the RX if it is forced to fly the whole
distance out of ground effect.

I think that the main economic issue with this concept is that fuel isn't that
much of a cost factor in short distance flying, but I might be completely
wrong with this.

~~~
j9461701
>Wouldn't most GEV be able to temporarily "jump" out of ground effect for
emergencies like that, or at least wouldn't require much change to gain that
capability? But that ability wouldn't really make a difference, not without
solving all the other issues as well.

Consider these vehicles can travel up to 500 km/h and operate very near to the
ground, meaning

1) Vision-obscuring weather like fog or rain

2) A plethora of objects to smack into

3) Very low time to react due to high speed

This is why we generally avoid flying planes this low, unless forced to by
circumstances. An example of such circumstances is found in military aviation,
in which military aircraft fly very low to the earth to avoid detection (a
strategy rendered somewhat less effective modernly due to the invention of
light-weight Pulse-Doppler radar). In this case the danger from crashing the
plane is judged less than the danger from enemy missiles.

GEVs take this already challenging and dangerous task, which the military only
does because they are being shot at, and then make everything that much more
difficult by having the vehicle control like a cow.

~~~
usrusr
> 2) A plethora of objects to smack into

On the ocean? I'd say that not running into objects that raise high from an
ocean would rank pretty low on the scale of control problems that are hard in
2020.

"up to 500 km/h" are military devices built for maximum speed at minimal
distance from the surface. A short distance people mover aircraft that tries
to trade speed for energy conservation would have very different numbers. And
it would be far more nimble, by being able to quickly raise out of the ground
effect level, than swimming ocean-surface vessels that are already quite
capable of not hitting objects on the ocean (you'd definitely want to improve
on the state of that art though).

The biggest issue with this concept, outside of the clearly problematic
cost/market size ratio (because designing planes is never cheap) would surely
be that an aircraft traveling in ground effect lacks the altitude energy store
that allows conventional aircraft to deal surprisingly well with engine
outages (or sensor issues) outside of short time windows during start and
landing. You'd probably need to spend a lot of mass and effort on making the
fuselage properly boatable in emergencies even if it's never intended to swim
more than once.

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orthoxerox
It's as impractical as it's cool. While faster than any warship of similar
capacity, it has a huge turning radius and requires a lot of power to take off
(if you have ever seen a swan take flight you know what I mean).

~~~
masklinn
> While faster than any warship of similar capacity

OTOH a "warship of similar capacity" is a large-ish patrol boat, Lun-class is
about the same weight as a Cyclone-class. It's really not much of a warship.

~~~
willvarfar
The Lun was very heavily armed!

NATO considered it a super fast patrol boat, and the soviets really doubled
down on missile boats.

The range of the Lun’s missiles out ranged its radar, which was a problem that
missile boats of that era also had. Nato imagined that a forward Lun would act
as scout for the rest etc with lots of coordination.

The Lun’s problem was that by the time it entered trials the soviet missile
boats were being fitted with a over horizon radar that the Lun couldn’t carry.

That, and the end of the Cold War, of course.

[http://www.hisutton.com/Russian-Navy-Ekranoplan-
WIG.html](http://www.hisutton.com/Russian-Navy-Ekranoplan-WIG.html)

~~~
masklinn
I'm not saying it wasn't heavily armed, I'm saying all things considered it
was a very small warship — though a very fast one; and it was extremely
expensive compared to the warships you'd expect at the end of the scale, so
not really matching the missions those'd usually have: the advantage of patrol
or missile boats is that they're cheap and they're relatively easy to crew,
but a Lun would be neither of those.

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condercet
Could you build a passenger version of this and run it up and down the west
coast? (or trans-pacific?) Sounds like a "speeder" from Star Wars!

NASA (or atleast someone affiliated with NASA) seems to think there's some
potential!
[https://nari.arc.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/IF...](https://nari.arc.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/IFAR_AeroAcademy_2014.pdf)

The last slide shares conclusions: "Commercial ground effect planes will lead
to more fuel efficient trans-oceanic flights. • Cheaper flights. • More
accessible. • Less pollution. • Revolutionize aviation design."

~~~
condercet
so that slideshow I linked was probably written by an intern or something -
but here's a serious analysis of the tech dated 1999 from DTSO (australian
army) that states: "There are no apparent technological barriers to the
successful design, manufacture and operation of WIG craft"

"[http://www.seaphantom.com/pdf/MILITARY_ANALYSIS_WIG_AIRCRAFT...](http://www.seaphantom.com/pdf/MILITARY_ANALYSIS_WIG_AIRCRAFT_AU_GetTRDoc.pdf)

------
sradman
From the bullet points that start the article:

> The Soviet Union was the only country to experiment with such a craft, and
> Russia abandoned the effort after the Cold War.

I think it could be argued that the Spruce Goose [1] was an early experiment
with a hybrid Ground Effect Vehicle [2].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-4_Hercules)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-
effect_vehicle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-effect_vehicle)

~~~
masklinn
> I think it could be argued that the Spruce Goose was an early experiment
> with a hybrid Ground Effect Vehicle.

Since the Spruce Goose was never intended or designed to take advantage of
ground-effect[0], it really can't unless you go with the approach that more or
less every large plane is "an experiment in GEV".

[0] quite the opposite, GE is less pronounced with high wings, which is why
the Lun uses mid-wings and the Orlyonok uses low-wings

~~~
sradman
> never intended or designed to take advantage of ground-effect

This is a bit of a circular argument. How do you incorporate real-world
empirical data in your design before you have a real-world prototype? The
ground effects phenomena was known at the time and thought to be suited to
large flying boats.

We are both speculating about undocumented intent but I'd be surprised if the
designers were unaware of the potential efficiency gains.

~~~
masklinn
> We are both speculating about undocumented intent but I'd be surprised if
> the designers were unaware of the potential efficiency gains.

You are making a positive assertion and providing no evidence whatsoever for
it. My statement is that there is no evidence for for your assertion, and that
the design of the spruce goose is evidence for the opposite of your assertion.

