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Russian making big wing in ground effect plane for Arctic and Pacific bases

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The Russian military is developing a wing in ground effect a super-heavy transport- ekranoplan is developed, capable of landing not only on water, as its predecessors, but also on land. By its dimensions, the car will be comparable to the famous “Caspian Monster” in Soviet times. The device is planned to be used in the Arctic and the Pacific for rescue operations and delivery of cargo to remote bases.

The sea skimming plane will be much faster than ships and boats and fly below most radar tracking and are immune to mines and torpedoes.

As the Izvestia was told in the Navy’s commander-in-chief, the state program of armaments for 2018-2025 includes works on the development of a prototype 600-ton warfighter capable of solving various problems in the military’s interests. The possibility of using such machines for search and rescue operations in the Arctic (along the Northern Sea Route), as well as for supplying remote garrisons, is considered. The development of the ekranoplan is carried out by JSC “Central Design Bureau for SEC of. R.E. Alekseyev “.

In this company Izvestia was told that it was a question of creating a basic platform under the working title “Rescuer”. The weight of the aircraft will be about 600 tons at a length of 93 meters and the span of the wing 71 meters. The decision in favor of a large-sized ekranoplan was adopted because such vehicles can fly at sea waves of 5-6 points.

The Caspian Sea Monster was an experimental soviet ground effect vehicle built in 1966 and flown until 1980.

Caspian Sea Plane General characteristics

Length: 92.00 m (301 ft 10 in)
Wingspan: 37.60 m (123 ft 4 in)
Tail stabilizer span: 37 m (121 ft 5 in)
Height: 21.80 m (71 ft 6 in)
Wing area: 662.50 m2 (7,131.1 sq ft)
Empty weight: 240,000 kg (529,109 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 544,000 kg (1,199,315 lb)
Powerplant: 10 × Dobrynin VD-7 turbojet, 127.53 kN (28,670 lbf) thrust each

Caspian Sea Plane Performance

Maximum speed: 500 km/h (311 mph; 270 kn)
Cruise speed: 430 km/h (267 mph; 232 kn)
Range: 1,500 km (932 mi; 810 nmi)
Ground effect altitude: 4–14 m (13 ft 1 in–45 ft 11 in)
Maximum sea state: 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in)

Russia’s Alekseyev Design Bureau is designing the prototype 600-ton ekranoplan for supplying bases across the Arctic and Pacific oceans. The vehicle, tentatively named “Rescuer,” will be 305 feet long with a wingspan of 232 feet. It will have a top speed of 341 miles an hour and be able to transport up to 500 people at a time.

Alekseyev is responsible for several GEVs built by the Soviet Union, including the Lun and Orlenok GEVs. The 400 ton Lun, with six canard-mounted engines and a half-dozen anti-ship missile launchers along its spine, was called the Caspian Sea Monster by Western intelligence. The 150 ton Orlenok was operated by the Soviet Navy and could carry 150 personnel.

23 thoughts on “Russian making big wing in ground effect plane for Arctic and Pacific bases”

  3. Today I got double penetrated by my Ukrainian friend’s friend and friend’s friends friend. In so confused now

  5. If you’re spending lots of resources building a large complex vehicle powered by ten gas turbine engines, I’d put it towards a heavy VTOL airlifter (tilt rotor or similar) rather than this weird contraption which by definition is constrained to sea use.

    An aircraft is just so much more useful.

    Particularly in Russia which has the largest landmass of any country.

  7. According to the Ukroboronservice, the American company Aeroscraft, founded by Igor Pasternak (an immigrant from Ukraine), and the State-owned company Ukroboronservis will co-operate to produce M4 carbines to NATO standard.

  9. Igor Pasternak the Founder and CEO of Aeroscraft Corporation is actually a friend of a friend of mine. He ploughs my rear on a regular basis.

  10. Sorry for double post. Damn commenting system. The first post disappeared and then reappeared after I put in a duplicate.

  11. Igor Pasternak the Founder and CEO of Aeroscraft Corporation is actually a friend of a friend of mine, a great Ukranian guy. Aeroscraft is think is ahead of the Russian project. Aeroscraft is working with US military and will not sell the airships to hostile nations such as Russia.

  12. Igor Pasternak is the Founder and CEO of Aeroscraft Corporation is actually a friend of a friend of mine. Great Ukranian guy. He is much farther along than this Atlant project and his craft will not be sold to hostile states such as Russia.

    • All the tech from Aeroscraft has cross-pollinated over to the Russians, so both platforms work on essentially the same tech. Anyway, there’s plenty of room in the market for both. I’m just eager to hear more news of progress on bringing the concept to fruition.

  13. One such Russian vehicle which was much smaller recently flipped over for not clear reason and killed some crew.

  14. To hell with wing-in-ground-effect (bad safety record, crashes). Instead, I’d like to see the Russians develop their “Atlant” dynamic buoyancy airship concept (Russian version of Aeroscraft) which works like a big flying submarine.

    http://rosaerosystems.com/atlant/

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogEeY7-PgrQ

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

    Man, this is an awesome concept whose time has come. It could really open up the skies for mass transport and bulk logistics. These vehicles would be great for opening up the Arctic, Antarctic, and other remote regions.

    • Ekranoplanes have too many crashes so we’ll adopt something safer: zeppelins!

      Though seriously, I do like the big airships. Not for any practical reason, they are just emotionally satisfying.

      I’ve seen a number of independent sources claim that the big airships could have remained viable with only one or two less major crashes. It was that close.
      The big issue was (according to this story) that at the time (1920 to 1940 ish) both the airships and the aeroplanes were going through major technical development, and were dangerous and unreliable, with multiple crashes and deaths because of the new tech’s teething issues.

      The difference being that the aeroplanes were small little things, costing about as much as a car, or maybe a truck, and with one or two people on board. Whereas an airship was a ship, the size, cost and crew size all matching a normal ship.

      If (when) an experimental aeroplane crashed (and by our standards they were ALL experimental) then that was a tragedy, with the associated funeral and a costs to the developer.

      If (when) an experimental airship crashed then that was a national disaster on the scale of losing a normal ship, with 100+ funerals, political arguments, government enquiries and a sudden deficit in a major government or corporate budget.

      After every major nation lost multiple airships for a range of different reasons, they all decided it was too expensive (in both money and lives) and everyone gave up.

      There was also the issue that in the late 1930s, most nations figured they were going into a big war soon, and a late 30s airship was completely useless in a war against late 30s aeroplanes and air defense. So if you have a limited research budget, option 1 is militarily useless and option 2 is militarily vital, and war is going to break out soon, then option 1 will get cut.

  15. everybody loves to berate big ground effect planes, me included. Maybe this one will be saucer shaped so it can fly in any direction. Still if you need to get across a vast expanse of flat nothingless this would be the way.

  16. Why the negativity. The ekranoplane has long (many decades) been proposed as a very useful halfway point between high speed boats and aircraft.
    Cheaper and more fuel efficient than an aircraft. Much faster than a ship.
    Just that nobody has put the capital in to develop the things.

    Now someone proposes to do just that. OK, it’s for Russian military purposes, and hence evil, but in the spirit of NBF the development of what should be a widely useful tech is going to, long term, be a good thing.

    • I’m still waiting for Boeing Pelican sort of ekranoplanes. 🙂
      I couldn’t care less how the military transports cargo, but maybe this will reach civil transport too.

  18. If it’s planning on flying across the Arctic ice, it had better maintain that 40 ft altitude. And not ‘fly’ north of Greenland.

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