Ekranoplans make it big

Ekranoplans are basicly huge planes that are built to take advantage of the ground effect, so they operate basicly like ocean-ships, operating over the water instead of ground (no obstacles, after all). The first ones were built by the Soviet Union, but soviet politics killed the project. They would make excellent liners, combining the speed of planes with the capacity (or luxury) of ships.

How can we get them to see common use? Maybe the designer (whose name escapes me) escapes to America, and the US designs them. What effect might this have?
 
Well, the enkranoplans were going to be used as fast coastal combatands- in fact, one was armed with six SS-N-22 missiles. They have more military applications than anything else, I think. It would only take a small POD to make the USSR concentrate on them as a viable sea unit, perhaps for baltic/black sea/med. use.
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Why would they have only military apps? As far as interocean shipping goes there is now only slow and cheap (ship) or fast and expensive (air) ,there is no trucking line that runs across any ocean. These planes seem like just that, two questions:
Just how big are they? How fast are they? Once this is known we should be able to figure their most likely cargoes. I see them starting as a North Atlantic shuttle, crossing the ocean in about a day, Machine tools being their most likely first big customer.

However, how would they deal with storms? Would they be esp vulnerable?
 
NapoleonXIV said:
Why would they have only military apps? As far as interocean shipping goes there is now only slow and cheap (ship) or fast and expensive (air) ,there is no trucking line that runs across any ocean. These planes seem like just that, two questions:
Just how big are they? How fast are they? Once this is known we should be able to figure their most likely cargoes. I see them starting as a North Atlantic shuttle, crossing the ocean in about a day, Machine tools being their most likely first big customer.

However, how would they deal with storms? Would they be esp vulnerable?
The original Ekranoplan (known as the Caspian Sea Monster) was 540 tons, and travelled at 500 kph.

They'd cross the ocean in much less than a day. They'd probably have problems with storms, so they'd just do their best to avoid storms.
 
NapoleonXIV said:
However, how would they deal with storms? Would they be esp vulnerable?

They would fly around them. US is considering this as transporters. Jane's had an article about them 2 or so years back. We will likelly see them in future.
 
Ekranoplanes need flat calm to operate. Because of this, ekranoplanes are essentially limited in the same ways hovercraft are - but they can't go on land.
 
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