View From The Porch: Something in the vodka...

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.; 7:04 PM, September 11, 2009
madrocketscientist said...: I'm designing one of these right now, hope to actually build it in a few years.; 9:21 PM, September 11, 2009
Kristophr said...: Yep ... the Caspian dragon. My second fav aircraft, right behind the Project Pluto DSLAM.; 9:23 PM, September 11, 2009
Tam said...: Well, the Caspian Sea Monster was an entirely different beastie of ekranoplane...; 9:38 PM, September 11, 2009
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?; 11:20 PM, September 11, 2009
Kristophr said...: Yea, they started as biplanes. Add a ground effect wing, then the second upper wing becomes a decoration.; 12:08 AM, September 12, 2009
perlhaqr said...: Ninth Stage: I hope they put some sound deadening in the cockpit on that thing. Yeesh.; 11:28 AM, September 12, 2009
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; 2:07 PM, September 12, 2009
Anonymous said...: Student pilots learn to utilize this effect for soft field takeoffs.; 8:51 PM, September 12, 2009
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.; 9:40 PM, September 12, 2009
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.; 12:23 AM, September 13, 2009