Ground-effect vehicle
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A ground-effect vehicle, ekranoplan, wing-in-ground-effect, ground-effect craft/machine, wingship, flarecraft, or surface effect vehicle, is a hybrid surface vehicle/aircraft that makes use of wings t
Ekranoplan A-90 Orlyonok
WIG-wings configurations: (A) Straight wing; (B) Reverse-delta wing; (C) Tandem wing.
A Russian light ekranoplan Aquaglide-2
Artist's concept of a Lun-class ekranoplan in flight
Caspian Sea Monster
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The KM, known colloquially as the Caspian Sea Monster, was an experimental ground effect vehicle developed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s by the Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau. The KM began operati
Ground-effect vehicle
…up to eight tonnes in displacement. This led to the development of a 550-tonne military ekranoplan of 92 m (302 ft) length. The craft was dubbed the Caspian Sea Monster by U.S. intelligence experts, after a huge, unknown craft was spotted on satellite reconnaissance photos of the Caspian Sea area in the 1960s. With its…
Artist's illustration of the KM
The Caspian Sea Monster at Kaspiysk photographed with a KH-8 reconnaissance satellite in 1968. The ekranoplan featured a constant-chord main wing and a stabilizer with notable dihedral (visible in the image as a difference in brightness between the left and right side of the stabilizer) and an unswept aft trailing edge.