Here's What Happened To The Soviet Ground Effect Sea Monsters - Ekranoplan.mp4

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https://jalopnik.com/heres-what-happ...mon-1840659111

Back in the 1960s, Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev claimed there was a
secret project going on deep in the country. It had a ship—this half-plane,
half-boat contraption—that was capable of breaking the land speed records of the
era while carrying an unprecedented amount of cargo. These projects were called
Ekranoplans, and here’s why this technology just never caught on.

We’ve written about Ekranoplan before if you’re unfamiliar with the history
here. In short, this thing was a massive, terrifying beast of a machine. But it
never actually entered production. Mustard on YouTube lets us know what happened
next:

https://youtu.be/yVdH_dYlVB8

Ekranoplans as a general idea weren’t originally intended for military use, but
in the Soviet Union, the best way to gain funding was to demonstrate a new
technology’s use in battle. Aside from being able to potentially carry nuclear
missiles, Ekranoplans had other benefits. Because they don’t actually touch the
water, it’s not detectable by active sonar and they don’t set off naval mines,
but they didn’t fly high enough to be detected by radar at the time. It was the
perfect middle group for covert transportation.

But Ekranoplans weren’t perfect. Their problems could likely have been solved
with some more tinkering, but by that point, Khrushchev had been replaced by
Leonid Brezhnev, and Brezhnev wasn’t as interested in risky, bold projects.
Ekranoplans were one of them.

As resources dwindled and project leaders grew more frustrated, Ekranoplan plans
were abandoned. It just didn’t make sense to keep building these things. Only a
few Ekranoplans were ever built, some of which were used in the military. In
fact, you can still find one today on Google Maps in Kaspiysk, a city on the
Caspian Sea in Russia. When the government decided to quit using Ekranoplan
technology in 1991, it simply parked one in a harbor and left it:

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media...a1y3e8zyzy.png

But the promise of the technology is still there. The larger the Ekranoplan, the
better it became, with improved handling and expanded capabilities. There’s too
many billionaires in this world. Rather than build dumb rockets, why not an
Ekranoplan?

Just as frivolous, but way more fun.



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