Re:The ‘Caspian Sea Monster’ rises from the grave
by btilly on Friday October 23, 2020 @11:59AM
(#24870886)
You have put your finger on exactly the reason why they failed commercially in the real world.
The problem is that just one monster wave is disaster. The bigger you make the device, the bigger the wave it can take. But to justify a bigger machine, you need to have it transporting a higher volume of people. Which means that you only hit the break-even point for ground effect vehicles where lots of people want to quickly get from point A to point B over relatively calm seas. And ideally a relatively short distance so you can pick up lots of fares for your time spent over the water.
However wherever you have those conditions, you have the perfect economic conditions to build a bridge or a tunnel. That may be more expensive, but solve the problem better.
They do have limited military use. There you only want to use it once, the people you are transporting can accept higher risk than civilians would, and being able to ignore mines is a huge win. But again, only some military theaters benefit, and getting the machine where it needs to be can be a challenge.
The problem is that just one monster wave is disaster. The bigger you make the device, the bigger the wave it can take. But to justify a bigger machine, you need to have it transporting a higher volume of people. Which means that you only hit the break-even point for ground effect vehicles where lots of people want to quickly get from point A to point B over relatively calm seas. And ideally a relatively short distance so you can pick up lots of fares for your time spent over the water.
However wherever you have those conditions, you have the perfect economic conditions to build a bridge or a tunnel. That may be more expensive, but solve the problem better.
They do have limited military use. There you only want to use it once, the people you are transporting can accept higher risk than civilians would, and being able to ignore mines is a huge win. But again, only some military theaters benefit, and getting the machine where it needs to be can be a challenge.