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It would be interesting to see what happens at about 1:09 minutes when that wing hits water.
Because of how it works, i think its a small erkanoplan rather than a hovercraft.....
http://igor113.livejournal.com/51213.html
Russian concept for over-sized fast transport and as carrier killers. Smaller ekranoplans are/ were used as ferries on the black sea and large lakes. Steering is minimal, since you can't have a wingtip strike the water. Large rogue waves can be catastrophic on the smaller ones...but, overall, they're very fuel efficient, fast and safe. There's a new model out, maybe a kit, that I saw on tv a few years back; it seats 4 or 6...
And I thought camels were an anachronism. The video is a hovercraft, the ekranoplans is a planing hull/ground effect aircraft taken to the extreme. Jet ski gone wrong. Still, that one looks like it has a couple miles on it.
but it's flying in ground effect in the video... hence the wings....
as a 'hovercraft' why would it have wings....
The hovercraft is riding on a cushion of air until it reaches flying speed, the russian doohicky is riding on a boat hull until it reaches speed. There are some pretty cool utube vids.
but a hovercraft with the engines off just sits/ floats. erkanoplans often had additional engines to produce a hover effect to make getting into ground effect easier......
A hovercraft can rise vertically while stationary. It "hovers" on a cushion of air trapped by the skirt. Land or water.
But that vehicle is using a wing to fly in ground effect; by no means is it a traditional hovercraft. I dunno, but the wings change it in my opinion....
It's a traditional hovercraft until it hits enough speed to take off. Seeing as it can pull some altitude (enough for decent banks) it is more of a small aircraft that uses a hovercraft bag instead of wheels/pontoons. The Russian ekranoplans or whatever can only pull a few feet of altitude and they would crash miserably if they tried to bank. If this thing had better wings and a bigger engine it would probably fly like a normal airplane.
Looks like a damn fun toy. I love the 'Jesus Pin' "if it comes loose...you see Jesus."