Friday, September 11, 2009

Something in the vodka...

Stumbled across during my latest wikiwander:


The Wing-In-Ground Effect version of the yeoman 62-year-old An-2 "Built-In-Headwind" cargo biplane. Because... because... well, just because.

11 comments:

Ninth Stage said...

The X planes blog is, coincidentally, in the midst of a run of posts on wing-in-ground-effect aircraft. My favorite photo so far.

madrocketscientist said...

I'm designing one of these right now, hope to actually build it in a few years.

Kristophr said...

Yep ... the Caspian dragon. My second fav aircraft, right behind the Project Pluto DSLAM.

Tam said...

Well, the Caspian Sea Monster was an entirely different beastie of ekranoplane...

Anonymous said...

I'm missing the "Biplane" effect here... It might have the ground efx wing but where's the upper wing that would make it a 'biplane'?
Is that a similar but somewhat smaller variant of the AN-2?

Kristophr said...

Yea, they started as biplanes. Add a ground effect wing, then the second upper wing becomes a decoration.

perlhaqr said...

Ninth Stage: I hope they put some sound deadening in the cockpit on that thing. Yeesh.

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't it be something to see a GLONASS receiver next to an old tube radio, rattling around behind an old-school radial engine? Those Russians, clever.

Jim

Anonymous said...

Student pilots learn to utilize this effect for soft field takeoffs.

fast richard said...

Yes, ground effect is your friend when snow is on the runway. Just don't try to climb out of ground effect until you have a little speed built up.

My favorite AN-2 picture showed a bunch of paratroopers arrayed behind little fairings along the lower wing. They were not given parachutes, but were supposed to jump from very low altitude, like a few feet. At the low speed of the AN-2, if the snow was deep, it might have worked.

Ken said...

I recommend Charles Stross's novella Missile Gap (iffen it ain't a novella, kindly pretend the title is in quotes instead of italics). Yuri Gagarin skippering a nuclear ekranoplan on a five-year mission. Almost as bleak and depressing as A Colder War...

...almost.