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Ruskie Seaplane...

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Shugster said:
One for you history buffs... MJ I'm looking in your direction...:PDT_Xtremez_28:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7638659.stm

Say what you like about the Russians, but their inventors are very talented as has been proved time and again.
Click to expand...

Humm, ekranoplans (Screen Planes in English), also know in the west as WIG's (Wing In Ground effect) Russian's built a number of them, including a few really big ones one of which was called the Caspian Sea Monster. Russians had a number of ideas for their use, like high speed long range landing craft (carried 1000 troops) or as an anti ship platform, picture of which is on this Link. (One had six very large naval anti ship missiles in launch tubes mounted above the fuselage, with guidance and targeting radars on the top of the tail. I’ve seen footage of one of the missile fired from the aircraft while in flight). On the video of the big one on that link (with 10 engines), the 8 engines at the front were just there to get the thing airborne. Once in ground effect, all of them were shut down and the ekranoplan cruised on the two engines mounted on the tail. The smaller ones with 8 engines, just shut some of them down (the info on the pravda link is wrong, no surprise there) One of the reasons the thing could travel for miles with a very heavy load. However they do have control problems, and cannot deal with a heavy sea swell. Yes, the Russians have always been good at Hydrodynamics and Aerodynamics thanks to the Soviet Union setting up a research and educational institute just for those two subjects (known as the CENTRAL AEROHYDRODYNAMICS INSTITUTE (TsAGI)), which is still going today and was the first institute of its type in the world. Most of the top designers in the USSR/Russian Federation have come out of there, including I do believe, Rostislav Alexeev who came up with the idea of the ekranoplans. (As part of his work on high speed boats (overcame the cavitation speed limit of hydrofoils, which limits them to a maximum speed of about 80-100mph), which was the role of the Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau where he worked). Which means that the ekranoplans are actually classified as boats, if they cannot fly out of ground effect. (Though a Swedish one and the German Alexander Lippisch, also had the same idea, but went about it in a different way in that their designs could fly like a normal aircraft).
 
Isn't it amazing what you can pass off as knowledge with a bit of google and wikipedia....:PDT_Xtremez_06:
 
Downsizer said:
Isn't it amazing what you can pass off as knowledge with a bit of google and wikipedia....:PDT_Xtremez_06:
Click to expand...

Are there many subjects that can't be looked up using Wiki etc?

It's finding key facts in the masses of info and condensing them that takes time and talent.

There isn't much you or I could say that couldn't be found somewhere in the web.
 
Downsizer said:
Isn't it amazing what you can pass off as knowledge with a bit of google and wikipedia....:PDT_Xtremez_06:
Click to expand...

Nope, The Discovery channel did a good programme on the subject about 13 years ago when the information about them first came out (though I've known about them from when the first reports about them came out in the late 1970's and early 1980's as they were in Flight Magazine which I did read in the school library at the time (with DOD released satellite photos of the Caspian Sea Monster) and the type was covered in a number of the newer aviation books at the time. All I've used the Internet for was to save me a lot of writing and check that my facts in my memory were correct (knowing the key words makes the job much easier).
 
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MAINJAFAD said:
Nope, The Discovery channel did a good programme on the subject about 13 years ago when the information about them first came out (though I've known about them from when the first reports about them came out in the late 1970's and early 1980's as they were in Flight Magazine which I did read in the school library at the time (with DOD released satellite photos of the Caspian Sea Monster) and the type was covered in a number of the newer aviation books at the time. All I've used the Internet for was to save me a lot of writing and check that my facts in my memory were correct (knowing the key words makes the job much easier).
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Gotcha....

Too easy.
 
I Look Like Kevin Costner said:
I can quite assure you DS that MJ has a extensive libary on most military matters and his knowledge based on that libary is very strong. He does know his stuff.
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It's like shooting fish in a barrel here somedays...

I got the bite I was after...:PDT_Xtremez_28:
 
Shugster said:
One for you history buffs... MJ I'm looking in your direction...:PDT_Xtremez_28:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7638659.stm

Say what you like about the Russians, but their inventors are very talented as has been proved time and again.
Click to expand...

There was a very good programme about the Caspian Sea Monster on BBC TV a good while ago, which I recorded. If I've done it right, I have a DVD of the programme, if anyone would like a copy ? (no promises - yet).

And yes, it was Alexeev who drew it up. The snag was that the design was rather 'brute-force' (I think one had 10 engines), and later designs (by Alexeev's successor) were not as complicated. There's a nearly complete one in a hangar somewhere. . . . . It's HUGE.

:PDT_Xtremez_28:
 
I remember the documentary about it but that Youtube footage is great, the aircraft carrier concept is just mind boggling and the first i have seen.
 
A colleague and I were talking about ground effect the other day and the Caspian sea monster cropped up in conversation. My colleague is under the impression that the Ruskies are resurrecting the beast for future use. How true is this? I can't find any info to suggest it is. MJ to the rescue please!



TW
 
Talk Wrench said:
A colleague and I were talking about ground effect the other day and the Caspian sea monster cropped up in conversation. My colleague is under the impression that the Ruskies are resurrecting the beast for future use. How true is this? I can't find any info to suggest it is. MJ to the rescue please!



TW
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It seems that a lot of their cold war development was mothballed due to lack of funds in the early 90's. Now thanks to those nice people in Europe paying for gas and oil, the covers are coming off a lot of the mothballed projects.
 
John Lloyd said:
It seems that a lot of their cold war development was mothballed due to lack of funds in the early 90's. Now thanks to those nice people in Europe paying for gas and oil, the covers are coming off a lot of the mothballed projects.
Click to expand...

They might even find the cash to finally get the next generation MiG up and running...the 1.44.
 
And thanks to 'Dubya' tearing up the missile treaty and pushing ahead with his missile defence system the Ruskies are well up for another cold war.
 
Shugster said:
Are there many subjects that can't be looked up using Wiki etc?

It's finding key facts in the masses of info and condensing them that takes time and talent.

There isn't much you or I could say that couldn't be found somewhere in the web.
Click to expand...

Actually there a lot of things that cannot be found on the net and there a lot of things on the net, which are wrong! That apart, there is no joy in typing in a couple of keywords but plenty in searching through books to find the relevant piece of info.

there is also the unwitting information that you can find in on either a PC or in a kindle! Something that I found in a book i picked up in a charity shop, was a piece of paper on which someone had written 'change for the NAAFI' along with various abounts in L S D(old money) and dated july 1947.
 
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