It’s a Boat! It’s a Plane! It’s an Ekranoplan!

#shorts
In the 1960s, the Soviets became interested in ekranoplans - vehicles using the so-called ground effect to glide just above the water. This allowed them to move faster than any ship while carrying more cargo than any airplane of comparable size.

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[corindolan]

I always loved soviet vehicles, practical? No, cool looking? Yeah

[oskar]

Russia still uses a lot of ekranoplans - but mainly small commercial ones. They're apparently very useful on stuff like large lakes and long wide rivers, etc. Pretty crazy technology, but the idea was interesting.

[MrJdsenior]

You gave the wingspan at an INCREDIBLE 144 meters, it is 140 feet, I believe. 140 meters would be TRULY spectacular. The Spruce Goose was
321 feet, and it was HUGE, something like 107 meters.

[ph]

US intelligence agencies nicknamed it the "Caspian Sea Monster" when it was first photographed in the late 60's.

[LegaliseFinland]

Man.. we should have let the Soviets subject their people with horrible oppression for a bit longer to see what kind of cool ass ekranoplanes they would have cooked up

[brentholladay]

I’m s proud American, but I love seeing CCCP innovation come to fruition

[OffGridInvestor]

Should've mentioned one of these could carry 1000 TONS

[Dan-hhpk]

Looks freakin awesome but i guess it wouldnt have much use in a real operation

[kirkkirkland]

Seems like this would be a awesome weapon!!! Also it seems like it would be great for shipping product???

[YourFunkiness]

I kept getting notifications that I clicked on only to have them say the video was taken down. Hope this one stays.

[Iamthelolrus]

Ah, the boat Khrushchev said could "jump over bridges."

[CMDRFandragon]

Meanwhile the game Caliber calls it a "WIG Missile Carrier"

[endi]

Ho una domanda ma volando così basso sul l'acqua I bird strike non sono un problema frequente?

[michaelguay-lachapelle]

Another armed force uses Ekranoplans, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have small ones in their swarm strategy to blockade the Strait of Hormuz

[GrigoriZhukov]

If they'd worked out completely then done armed it could have worked.

[craigrobertson]

Wingspan of 144m and length of 74m?? No you are wrong

[Cylon_]

Why don't they make a pulse jet cruise missile with this tech ??? It could skim the water around 3ft above the waves. Heck, make it a strap on kit for 500lb bombs and "skim" waves of them at naval targets. They would be too low to do much about 🚀🙌

[Leadblast]

The ekranoplanes had two huge problems that could never be solved. First, they cannot operate in oceans. The seas are literally too rough, waves in deep sea are just too big for them to hover at high speeds. Big waves also affect seaborne ships, but the conventional ships travel much slower so they have time to turn and avoid running into the most severe storms. The second problem is related to this and it's the fact that ekranoplanes are difficult to turn and change direction when they go full speeds. Unlike conventional airplanes, the ekranoplanes cannot roll and use ailerons to turn. All they have is some airbrakes and a gigantic tee tail which you can figure isn't very good at providing control when the thing gets going.

[jannegrey]

I hope that everything is okay - I saw that you had bigger video on your channel, but they were removed. Hopefully not some YouTube nonsense.

[samwill]

When your economy is collapsing, this is not what you should spend money on.