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Seagliders' 35-minute trips to Auckland closer with $145m deal (www.nzherald.co.nz)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm pretty sceptical about ground effect planes, there's a very good reason why they've never really taken off, despite so many countries and organisations giving them a try over the years, but I'd love to know what everyone else thinks.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I think that anything with such narrow operating parameter is always limited. Just the way things work. Take rockets - ones to put humans in orbit are very different than say sounding rockets, or other sub-orbitals, or even ones for satellites (and those vary based on LEO or GeoSynch).

Soviet Union used ground effects planes as naval vessels with missiles (Ekranoplan), which I guess the tradeoffs made sense.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The Soviets also crashed one of their ground effect planes, killing all the crew. I understand they were also very costly to operate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Electric ground effect has a major advantage vs the jet turbine driven ones.

It does not have to suck in massive volumes of air close to the ground....sea water is not good for jet turbines.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sea water is a nightmare for anything mechanical, in my experience, but electronics can at least be sealed effectively. Usually.

The biggest reason I'm so sceptical about this, is every other use case I've seen for electric vehicles or vessels has been something that's already a proven concept. Cars, trucks, planes, harbour ferries, they are all a proven concept, we're just moving to a different fuel.

Ground effect planes, on the other hand, have never been proven with any fuel type.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Good point.... We will just have to watch and find out. Ground effect theory, and somewhat practice is sound.