America's "Flying Sea Monster" or We've Already Seen It Somewhere
We are here with our overseas friend Kyle Mizokami (I hope everyone knows who Kyle's friend from "Interest" is) quietly poking around in stories and giggle a little nervously. The theme, of course, is shocking, but it hits the psyche very decently. Such a massive deja vu, like "we've already met" and stuff like that.
Okay, let's not intrigue, let's move on to the topic.
And our topic is - you will download! The topic was thrown up by dashing guys from DARPA. DARPA is not something for you, this is not a brigade of budget cutters, this is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - the Office of Advanced Research Projects of the US Department of Defense. A place where they try to make a fairy tale come true and not default their native country with the help of cost overruns at the same time.
DARPA is more than 200 people in six departments who are given three and a half billion dollars a year. Such money will inspire anyone to create something epoch-making. For example, the revival of airships of the Graf Zepellin type and even large ones.
Although sometimes projects born in the minds of DARPA employees happen to “shoot out”. The LS3 mule robot, capable of carrying up to 180 kg of cargo for infantrymen and already created in metal by Boston Dynamics, is currently being tested.
But usually DARPA projects are quietly removed into the archive, and the developers are raked over for an indefatigable flight of fancy.
It looks like it happened this time as well. But even in the US, there are people who are well aware that all "breakthroughs" into the future of DARPA are nothing more than a well-performed immersion in the past. Yes, as in the case of airships. Good example.
So the ladies and gentlemen of DARPA decided to build an airplane.
The unofficial working title was "Flying Sea Monster". Yes, such a pitch towards the "Caspian Monster", the Soviet ekranoplan "Lun", created long ago and in a long-defunct country.
And what? Why not? And by the way, there are only seven notes.
So, an ekranoplan, or an aircraft that will use the principle laid down by Soviet engineers. Yes, you can talk as much as you like about all sorts of Finnish engineers and their developments, I won’t argue, if you please.
An ekranoplan or dynamic hovercraft is a vehicle for moving above the surface, supported in the atmosphere due to interaction with air reflected from the surface of the earth or water. The use of the so-called "ground effect".
And here, excuse me, there are only three gods.
Boris Yuriev (son-in-law and student of the great Nikolai Zhukovsky)
Rostislav Alekseev
Robert Bartini
Three Soviet engineers, the rest, excuse me, are secondary. And therefore, everything that will be invented, to one degree or another, will become a repetition of what our designers did.
This applies to both foreign followers and Russian ones. The works of Sinitsyn, Alyamovsky, Lukyanenko, Polyakov represent new milestones in the development of WIG technology.
But back to the USA, where specialists from DARPA decided to surprise the whole world with an ekranoplane.
According to the developers, the plane, which has already received the official name "Liberty Lifter", will be able to glide over the surface of the ocean for long distances. The main task is to deliver heavy transport cargo to outlying islands and naval bases.
So, the “Freedom Lift” will be able to carry large and heavy loads, moreover, taking off and landing on the surface of the water. DARPA is confident that they will be able to provide the device with a controlled flight both at low altitudes above the waves and at medium altitudes, like a conventional aircraft flies.
The agency notes that traditional maritime transport using cargo ships is very efficient, but slow and dependent on the use of ports. The airlift is carried out quickly, but depends on airfields, which in wartime (as practice shows) are attacked in the first place.
The Liberty Lifter will use ground effect (WIG) to produce an aircraft-ship that can carry cargo comparable to ship cargo, fly much faster than a ship, and still be able to take off and land from the water. WIG refers to the phenomenon in which lift increases as the aircraft approaches a solid surface (land, water, ice) while drag decreases. A huge aircraft, flying in the WIG zone, will consume fuel approximately like a conventional aircraft.
It is clear that the Americans are developing their "Lift", looking very closely at the "Caspian Monster". In general, the abbreviation KM was deciphered as a “dummy ship”, but KM as a “Caspian monster” is so romantic ...
And in the end, DARPA went the way of Soviet engineers: the body of the aircraft in the shape of a boat, so that you can take off from the water and land on the water. In general, ekranoplans have something from ordinary aircraft, but they cannot fly so high.
But, the payload. The same KM once took to the air with a takeoff weight of 544 tons. This was a record for any existing aircraft. Only the An-225 Mriya aircraft, which appeared later, was able to break this record. True, Mriya is already all, but nevertheless, ekranoplans are capable of lifting significantly more weight than airplanes.
Okay, KM is actually a concept. But the Lun was also quite capable of carrying personnel and military equipment with a total weight of up to 100 tons. And this despite the fact that on board there were also weapons from 6 anti-ship missiles P-270 "Moskit" and two four-barrel gun mounts UKU-9K-502-II with a caliber of 23 mm.
And all this "Lun" could carry for 2 kilometers at a speed of 000 km / h.
Of course, ekranoplanes have problems that were originally built into the design. The flight of an ekranoplan over the surface of the sea can only take place in relatively calm weather. In heavy seas, a separate wave can simply knock out an air cushion from under the wing of the apparatus.
The second problem is that the ekranoplan shows all its flight qualities when sliding over a solid surface at a relatively (by aircraft standards) low altitude. Therefore, it is very difficult to maneuver ekranoplans, because a turn is a roll, and a roll causes a loss of forces acting on the wing, which must be raised. Therefore, the ekranoplan must do any maneuvers very slowly and carefully.
In general, the flight of an ekranoplan is a very difficult task. If you look without any semi-fantastic concepts, then only the Soviet Union was able to master the construction and operation of ekranoplanes. In Russia, too, work is underway on new projects, moreover, they are progressing, although not quickly, but successfully.
The US rushed to catch up. In 2002, Boeing announced that it was developing a new Pelican WIG concept aircraft that could carry 1 tons of cargo up to 400 km above water.
It was stated that the Pelican would have a length of 152 m and a wingspan of 106 m. Movement is carried out at a height of 6 m above the ocean surface with the possibility of approaching up to an altitude of 6000 m. The Pelican was supposed to take on board about 17 tanks M1 Abrams. The last mention of the "Pelican" dates back to 2003 and no further information about the continuation of work on the project was published.
What Boeing could not implement, they decided that they could at DARPA.
The center's specialists believe that more durable modern materials and some "innovative design solutions" will play on their side. That is, the "Freedom Lift" will not be so afraid of unrest, like the devices of the past, for example.
In general, the Liberty Lifter is a commando's dream. DARPA openly says that the best arena for the use of devices could be the South China Sea with its cloud of islands militarized by China.
Of course, several of these ekranoplans will be able to transfer equipment and fighters anywhere in the shortest possible time. And yes, the rules of military logistics can be changed very, very dramatically.
But we will be happy to talk about how effectively it is possible to operate such means of delivery as a transport ekranoplan in modern conditions when the machine makes its first flight. Before this significant moment, it would be premature and pointless to draw conclusions and speculate. Boeing is a Corporation with a capital letter, but even the specialists of this company were unable to repeat the work of Soviet engineers.
Moreover, it is worth recalling that, God forbid, if one of the 50 projects that DARPA worked on became a reality.
So whether we will be able to see American ekranoplanes landing on the Paracel Islands or the Spratly Islands is a matter of a long time and a lot of dollars.
Meanwhile, in Russia there are real cars of this class. S-90, "Ivolga", "Seagull", "Aquaglide" - they do not exist on paper. So the Americans have somewhere to go and something to strive for. The main thing is to move from beautiful animation to an equally beautiful metal product. And this is not for everyone.
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