Looks a bit flimsy to me, and no seat belts

Joking while he attached the wings before a flight, he said: "That's called the Jesus pin, when that pin comes out, you see Jesus."

Flying hovercraft.....for sale

Matt

It is actually a hovercraft, Doug... the video clearly shows that it uses a standard "skirt"-type arrangement to ride on a cushion of air. And like many hovercraft, it has a normal prop to get it moving forward. But once it gets to a certain speed, the wing bites air, just enough to lift it into ground effect, and it becomes a WIG. Not quite a boat, and not quite an airplane.

I'm surprised there is no third classification for WIGs there, although I'll bet the Russians have specific regulations for WIGs.

It's a very cool toy, but there is no way I would "go boating" in that thing without a seat belt. Dropping 3-10 meters onto water at 100kph is a nice way to break your neck, and all it would take is a little wind shear, or a decent thermal bubble.
And even before it becomes airborne, it goes fast enough that if you encountered chop or something while skimming the surface, out you'd go.

expat wrote on Mar 2^nd, 2010 at 1:38am:


Generally speaking, ground effect applies when an aircraft is within a wingspan's distance of the surface.

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I probably shouldn't have said "10 meters", but in the vid he's certainly higher than 3 meters at some points.
But again, since GE applies within a wingspan's distance, if this thing has a 10-meter wingspan, it can fly at 10 meters above the surface.

By my lights, even a WIG or ekranoplan is an aircraft, albeit a limited one. Potentially, this thing is more dangerous than a power boat or jet-ski, because it is fast and operates in 3 dimensions. and if it were to encounter rising air, it might get lifted out of ground effect briefly, which could be problematic. I'm not sure how this or any WIG would recover from that... it would probably drop quite low before the wing became effective again. If it stalled ( a WIG wing produces lift the same way any other wing does), it would certainly not have room to recover... another reason to have seat belts.
Ultralight aircraft don't always require training (by law, anyway), but they do require some sort of pilot/passenger restraint system. I think this sort of craft should be certified as an aircraft in that regard, at least. Riding on this thing without a seat belt is like sitting astride the rear fuselage of a float plane flying in ground effect. Who in their right mind would do that, even with hand-holds? 



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It is a sort of hybrid...a little bit of both. Usually, ekranoplans and other WIGs cannot take off from land, but this machine has a hovercraft "skirt" and some means of providing inflating it and providing an air cushion so that it can be operated from any reasonably flat surface.

Never mind the boat/ plane thingy...

Who's the smokin' hot blonde reporter??



Alan

Hello!

Mrgothere: Unfortunately I don't have a means in which to shoot video, but perhaps I could create a Tutorial for you using screenshots! Let me figure out some things, and I will let you know.

Peace,

Alan