Looks like something out of a Hollywood movie.................
Posted on 01/27/2012 7:51:43 AM PST by Hojczyk
In the thick of the Cold War, the Soviet Union built an immense vessel to carry their troops across the seas and into Western Europe.
Equipped with nuclear warheads and able to blast across the sea at 340 mph, the Lun-class Ekranoplane; part plane, part boat, and part hovercraft — is a Ground Effect Vehicle (GEV).
A GEV takes advantage of an aeronautical effect that allows it to lift off with an immense amount of weight, but limits its flight to 16 feet above the waves. Its altitude can never be greater than the length of the wings.
Think of a large seabird, like a pelican, cruising inches from the water and not needing to flap its wings.
The only complete Ekranoplane now sits on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
While there is talk of refitting the Lun-class and getting the GEV back in the fleet, it's now rusting away, and was spotted by aviation blogger Igor113 who posted these pictures to his blog.
Check out pictures and facts on the Soviet's secret weapon >
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Looks like something out of a Hollywood movie.................
That is the coolest #$%&ing plane I’ve ever seen!
Russian engineers have always thought outside the box. Remarkable.
It is more a boat than a plane. Actually an interesting technology to haul stuff over water. It is not exactly as fast as jet aircraft and doesn’t have exactly as much payload as cargo boat but it is too much faster than any boat and has too much more payload than any aircraft.
You are correct, the Russians were never bound by convention. Think of the Tu-144, a concorde copy, except they had the engines side by side and faired into the fuse, as opposed to under each wing as the SST had. Obviously this led to seriously stability and vibration issues culminating in a crash at the Paris Air Show in ‘73?’74?
It was used prinarily for the Moscow-Alma Aty run, which was done in just over three teeth rattling hours. Strange, but they were strange, but nothing was as it seemed in the Soviet Union..
That that is a plane built to put the fear of Ivan in you.
Okay, I see. That makes sense with its configuration. Still love it, though!
I designed something similar to this when I was eight years old.
Looks economical to operate... </sarc>
When the Russians build them they are either very good or deadly to everyone involved.
Russian subs are very tough but they throw safety standards out the window and sometimes they take a dive and never come up.
Thier rocket program was the gold standard but they lost quite a few comsonauts and had some really large explosions.
Just because something is unique doesnt make it useful.
Yeah but it probably gets better gas mileage than my Jeep.
Looks like it would only operate in calm seas, though.
Here is a test aircraft that carried a reactor (not to power the plane, but to test the reactor while airborne)
I had a boss who worked in radiation safety (health physics) for the project. He was involved in material tests that were carried out in Georgia. It was interesting talking to Bob Boyd about how the radiation would kill the tops of trees that were higher than the shield mounds around the radiation source they used to test aircraft parts. Here is a link about the US nuclear airplane project. Nuclear aircraft
>>>>>>>>>>>>>When the Russians build them they are either very good or deadly to everyone involved.
Russian subs are very tough but they throw safety standards out the window and sometimes they take a dive and never come up.
Thier rocket program was the gold standard but they lost quite a few comsonauts and had some really large explosions.
Just because something is unique doesnt make it useful.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As for their manned space program they lost much less crewmen comparing to NASA. Not to mention Russian space program was much more expensive. In reality, based on per mission ratio Russian cosmonaut has some 50 times more chance to survive his flight vs US counterpart.
Anyway, overall Russian safety standards are pretty inferior. It starts with a way of driving vehicles and muzzle awareness by teenage students up to operating nuclear subs and supersonic aircraft by trained professionals.
Just for example Germany loosing a couple dozen people annually drowning in rivers and lakes while Russia loosing several thousand who dies this way.
expensive=extensive
In 1961, at Baikonur(sp?), a manned rocket began the launch sequence. It was a three stage launch system, and when the count hit zero, the main engines failed to fire. Perplexed, engineers cautiously approached the rocket after verifying the the connections were correct, but knowing that the second stage seperation sequence had continued unimpeded.The seperation engines fired on the pad in a spectacular explosion killing hundreds of folks in an around the cosmodrome.
Around 1967, an incident in the Soviet Union would have a direct impact on our program occured when a young cosmonaut was brought to a hospital with horrific burns over 90% of his body. He had been training in a O2 saturated environment and was using a hot plate in there. It ignited some cotton on the cosmonauts clothes, literally lighting the air on fire. Had the Russians bothered to share this hard won info, we could saved Grissom and his crew..
And then there was the woman cosmonaut’s voice heard in the blind on shortwave as she burned up on on re-entry..
How do you know? Because the lying communist told us?
More Soviet space disasters here..
More Soviet space disasters here..
I have heard that the interesting thing about those reactors designed for the nuclear aircraft was that they had a positive alpha (i.e., positive reactivity feedback for increasing reactor power). You couldn’t license one of those today (for good reason). The other was that the final design had so much shielding there was much space of lift capacity left for cargo. Not terribly practical on balance.
This reminds me of the nuclear hand grenade. A Legion of Merit medal is tied to the pin.
I respectfully disagree. I would wager there are still at least 3 or 4 manned vehicles in orbit with dead cosmonauts in them. Then there are those who slammed into the ground at terminal velocity (over 500mph. Inexplicably, the sovs preferred land retreival as opposed to water).Coupled with O2 disasters, launch pad explosions and failing to achieve orbit, the Soviets have our NASA dead 3-1.
In 1968, an unmanned vehicle misfired and landed in China. The scientifically primitive chinese were appalled by the use of torsion springs, pulleys and other primitive engineering in the capsule. It is in the Red Army museum somewhere in China..
Yeap. Space flight is dangerous, but it is a testament to our value of life and our free and open press (before they sold their soles to the communists) that we didn’t have more fatalities.
The Russians and Chinese have done some really dirty things and have really disregarded their citizens in order to make military advances.
I hope we never get as bad as the communist.
From your lips to God’s ears..
Another marvelous & promising technology, relegated to the dustbin of history because it was featured on the cover of Popular Mechanics.
Actually, look up the US Davy Crockett nuclear mortar. It had something like a 1 mile range and a 2 mile blast radius.
It's been known since long before the space programs that things burn quite well in a high-oxygen atmosphere.
There was a huge battle between Admiral Rickover and General LeMay over who would control and deliver our nuclear arsenal.
The Nuclear Subs with their missiles basically killed off the research into the nuclear airplane... not that sinking that crazy idea was a bad thing.
I didn’t know the Russian’s had that thing that started this thread. I would love for Mr. Boyd to know about it.
Hmm. Then Grissom was just an anomaly?
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I respectfully disagree. I would wager there are still at least 3 or 4 manned vehicles in orbit with dead cosmonauts in them. Then there are those who slammed into the ground at terminal velocity (over 500mph. Inexplicably, the sovs preferred land retreival as opposed to water).
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Well, you may be right. But until there are credible evidence behind it is all urban myths to me, sorry.
Operation TIMBERWOLF ?..............
Couple of things:
In regard to the Lun...there is some footage of the thing actually flying and firing its rockets. If you do a YouTube search for ‘Lun-class”, you’ll find it. It’s from a Russian documentary of the ekranoplanes, and the narration is in Russian. However, if you click through, you’ll recognize the Lun.
Second, in regard to the nuclear airplane concept...the Air Force finally deemed the concept as too expensive to make both safe and workable. However, they had thought of “Project Pluto”. It was a nuclear-powered cruise missile/unmanned bomber that, once it’s nuclear engine was turned on, would go blasting at supersonic speeds (likely Mach 3) and low altitude towards several targets in the Soviet Union. It would’ve carried multiple nukes onboard, dropping them on several targets before self-destructing over the last target.
Not only that, but the shock wave from flying at Mach 3 so low to the ground would have caused serious damage along its flight path...and the exhaust was also going to leave a pretty nasty radioactive trail.
They dropped the idea when intercontinental ballistic missiles proved to be easier to design and build then previously thought.
I imagine it as what I call a “middle-finger” type of weapon...where you not only destroy cities but screw up the environment of your enemy for decades to come.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0y9UHyOhbo
There appears to be several more similar videos available via the "sidebar" at that same URL...
NASA only had three fatal accidents. Two were shuttles and one Apollo. Of course the shuttles carried more people than Russian spacecraft so the body count would be higher.
Russians seem to have a fatalistic view of life. They do things that are either dangerious or stupid. Like a whole country of drunk rednecks .
What's that got to do with the fact that it was known well before the untimely demise of the Apollo 1 crew that combustion occurs more rapidly in a 100% oxygen environment, even without the Russians?
What's that got to do with the fact that it was known well before the untimely demise of the Apollo 1 crew that combustion occurs more rapidly in a 100% oxygen environment, even without the Russians?
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Russians seem to have a fatalistic view of life. They do things that are either dangerious or stupid. Like a whole country of drunk rednecks .
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbgyy04_OV0
OMG INSANE Russian teens #### off the top of some tall tower
:)
So what! The medal would get vaporized.
We should license the design. Imagine a car ferry that could go from Chicago to Traverse City in one hour.
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