The gigantic Russian Ekranoplan aircraft carrier

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[cmbaz]

Soviet experimental stuff looks either futuristic or almost alien sometimes...

[rarityadff]

once again, the Soviet tells us that they loved to build something massive with unusual shape / design

[Sctt_e]

Man the whole ekranoplan concept is so awesome

[JulianFischerJulesBarner]

Soviet approach to stealth: Build something unpredictable, approaching from an angle nobody thought about at a speed they didn't expect.

[TheWoblinGoblin]

The most excentric soviet aerospace engineer

IN THE WORLD

[CodyRushDriving]

There's something inherently funny about applying the word "stealthy" to a vehicle the size of a shopping mall powered by ten jet engines. XD

[hehe-gbbu]

Robert Bartini drank way too much Martinis with this one

[jimsvideos]

Landing a fast jet on that thing would be a _trip._

[captain_commenter]

Being invisible to radar would probably be useless with 6-10 turbofans roaring at the enemy 😂

[longtsun]

If I was the navy officer who had to draft a concept of operations (conops) for this, I'd have the fighters land at airbases after performing their missions, not on the ekranoplan carrier (with the obvious exception of emergencies landings). The carrier is basically used as a "booster rocket" to bring the fighters within striking distance of their targets- not as versatile as a conventional carrier, but considering its obvious limitations, I think that's the best use for it.

[wotanscry]

better not stall an engine due to water inteake fram a wave or so because a disruption of the pillow effect would make it the vessel do basicly a 600mph water crashlanding ...

[boy_ka]

I was wondering just now, is Thunderbird 2 design gets its design from The Ekranoplan???

[icemanification]

I'm kinda skeptical about it's use in the military. On the other hand, I think it would be very useful for transport and commercial use. It would be able to deliver goods and people around the world way quicker than any cargo ship ever can. Win-win.

[Iconoclasher]

Another problem is the planes can't take off or land unless the thing is cruising at 500mph. That may not be feasible in a battlefield situation.

[Legend-zobc]

That's some Thunderbirds stuff right there! 😁

[trevorsoh]

Man, the renders are brilliant - and the table with photographs too. Great work!

[randywise]

I saw a model of an ekranoplan zooming on a lake near my town. It was cool to watch.

[michaeldvorak]

Excellent, very well created visualisations and nicely balanced information! Highly professional! Thanks!

[sdoo-ouni]

From a theoretical and purely theoretical this is a good idea on practice however oh my good I shudder to contemplate the maintenance costs on that thing

[SomeOrdinaryJanitor]

im sure there are very good reasons Ekranoplans/ground effect craft weren't further developed. but this is probably the future im most upset we never got.