Electric seagliders could enable short-haul emissions-free air travel

Re:Electric seagliders could enable short-haul emissions-fre... by KaiserPro on Wednesday July 20, 2022 @08:33AM (#32164812)

Its not a silly concept, but that render is a bit off.

If you want a ground effect plane, then you need your wings much closer to the floor. that plane looks like you'd need to be operating in really calm weather or not at all.

Also, I suspect that tail is nowhere near big enough, as its operating outside of ground effect.

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Re:Electric seagliders could enable short-haul emissions-fre... by jaclaz on Wednesday July 20, 2022 @12:11PM (#32167851)

The people that will make this did make a tiny prototype (or a huge r/c model, it depends on how you see it) and released a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2XW4n0nn2c

where the model seemingly completely fails to reach ground effect and simply travels on its hydrofoils.

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Re:Electric seagliders could enable short-haul emissions-fre... by dTal on Wednesday July 20, 2022 @11:15AM (#32166945)

I agree; high wing ekranoplans aren't a thing, and for excellent reason. But if we're being charitable, we might surmise that they have calculated that their "blown wing" design increases the margin for ground effect to work, and the high wing is necessary to avoid prop strikes. In traditional low-wing ekranoplan designs, a separate high-wing pylon is usually needed for the propulsion, which their design eliminates.

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Re:Electric seagliders could enable short-haul emissions-fre... by Ekaros on Wednesday July 20, 2022 @08:56AM (#32165091)

Yeah, logically thinking placing the wing at top of fuselage for ground effect vehicle is waste as the ground effect is from bottom of the wing. With aeroplanes it matters lot less. And higher clearance from ground for engines is even preferred.

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