Is there a maximum hight to be attained by flying in ground effect.
Generally speaking, ground effect applies when an aircraft is within a wingspan's distance of the surface.
Three meters seems about right, but ten meters must put it into aircraft "mode". I can't see it producing ground effect at that hight.
I probably shouldn't have said "10 meters", but in the vid he's certainly higher than 3 meters at some points.
But again, since GE applies within a wingspan's distance, if this thing has a 10-meter wingspan, it can fly at 10 meters above the surface.
By my lights, even a WIG or ekranoplan is an aircraft, albeit a limited one. Potentially, this thing is more dangerous than a power boat or jet-ski, because it is fast and operates in 3 dimensions. and if it were to encounter rising air, it might get lifted out of ground effect briefly, which could be problematic. I'm not sure how this or any WIG would recover from that... it would probably drop quite low before the wing became effective again. If it stalled ( a WIG wing produces lift the same way any other wing does), it would certainly not have room to recover... another reason to have seat belts.
Ultralight aircraft don't always require training (by law, anyway), but they do require some sort of pilot/passenger restraint system. I think this sort of craft should be certified as an aircraft in that regard, at least. Riding on this thing without a seat belt is like sitting astride the rear fuselage of a float plane flying in ground effect. Who in their right mind would do
that, even with hand-holds?
As for it being a hovercraft, is it not more along the lines of a home made ekranoplan?
It is a sort of hybrid...a little bit of both. Usually, ekranoplans and other WIGs cannot take off from land, but this machine has a hovercraft "skirt" and some means of providing inflating it and providing an air cushion so that it can be operated from any reasonably flat surface.
Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 11:31 am
