RAM Effect Vehicle - A New Type of Aircraft Wing Design?
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- Опубликовано: 20 авг 2024
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the most engineering thing quote i have ever heard. "thats incredible, it really does exactly what i designed it to do" (7:16)
Arguably a better feeling than sex
@@dsdy1205 Oh its not arguable, it is.
@@dsdy1205 that sums up alot
i was about to say the same thing! it’s the quote engineers wish they could say on the first design lol.
It also prooves he isn't a bad engineer. The bad engineer version of this quote is : "this shouldn't have worked" .
4:16 It's Awesome to see the Canadian Air Force along with their young cadets take an interest in your aircraft.
haha
😁😁😁😁
I heard the Canadian Air Force does some pretty heavy migration
I love that he actually shows us the ducks and geese when theyre nearby.
Theyre boats that are also submarines, that are also planes, that are also ground effect vehicles, that also walk, such amazing birds!
great observation... hail mother nature
Made by the Master Engineer 👍marvels
2yr lag
The Soviets had their Ekranoplan version decades ago. Back in the 80s, somebody in Florida had developed a small boat/aircraft version big enough to carry several people and had fully flying prototypes. It got media coverage but I never saw it come to market.
i was going to say that he's just reinventing the Ekranoplan all over again.
Russians gave up and South Korea took over the development and is already in production. Will be used for military purpose to patrol its water and also to transport...
@@Douglas-yf6nb He talked about full scale ground effect craft in previous videos, including taking direct inspiration from Ekranoplan for takeoff with vectored thrust.
The only reason why I'm watching this video is to see how it's DIFFERENT from the Ekranoplan...
DEA and FAA said nope because of drug war
This one was your best IMO, it glides so gracefully above the water! I loved the shots with the geese looking over your creation hahaha
concordo
Now it's time to make the full size version.
@@C.I... ruclips.net/video/TNWOQxhku_A/видео.html
The same system as the Russians 60 years ago!
ruclips.net/video/mryyvJwakn8/видео.html
what lake is he at? Lake union?
Waterproofing electronics I found the clear "E-6000" glue works the best and lasts forever. Hope this helps for future builds.
RTV as well.
Sperm is good also
In some flashlights they incase the electronics in epoxy, mainly for durability since the solder joints can't break, but also for waterproofing. Wonder if that would work too 🤔
@@mynamesnotimportant6941 Epoxy is in fact a common method in industry to protect electronics and to preserve performance specs. It's called potting and incorporates certain characteristics, but the casual user can likely get by with many everyday varieties..
@@joewoodchuck3824 fair about the average consumer. I like extremely durable things though so when I get the chance I'ma pick up an Elzetta flashlight. Really expensive but fully potted electronics so extremely durable. One dude even dropped his out of a helicopter at 300ft and it landed on concrete; broke the concrete but the flashlight still worked.
You can also disassemble the flashlight underwater, and nothing will get damaged (also from the potting). Really cool. :D
that shot at 11.50 where it just glides for a while with motor off is amazing! So smooth
Wing In Ground Effect craft (Often called WIG craft are still in use in some parts of the world. Most are based on the the Soviet era designs, but there are new designs in production and most are design to fly at heights of up to 50% of their wing’s cord width over water and smooth land.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-effect_vehicle
I've watched the 4 parts and this iteration is clearly the best looking until now. On smooth water, it's really cool to see this vehicle fly barely above the water (idk what the speed was but it looks fast in the video), without creating much wake in the water. Didn't you get questions by people passing by ? I'd definitely stop and ask what this thing is because it looks awesome!
Looks like a star wars speeder on sand.
Can you try it out on a really flat surface like ice rink or basketball court?
That could be hard, the hard surface might damage the rams/skids. It would be best with wheels probably
@@blu5021 plastic trims on the skids will suffice
@@blu5021 or teflon
I think it needs waaayyy more room than a single court.
@@russc788 Mall parking lot?
I get to watch a lot of RC things on youtube with my husband, he has the controller . Yours is the first video I REALLY enjoyed! Thank you 😃
Wow, just wow !
It's fantastic and you're super skilled...
I can't even manage to build a simple stickman with matches.
Even the geese are mesmerized by your ram-ground-water-craft !
This is a cool project. The russian Ekranoplan was built in the 1970's and actually very successful as a cold war presence and as a ground effect aircraft. Glad to see people are still playing around with this concept
ruclips.net/video/yVdH_dYlVB8/видео.html video about russian ekranoplan
I was looking for this comment, I was aware of the Russian craft as well.
The ekranoplan failed as a ground effect aircraft. It didn't function well under wavy conditions.
@@MrAnonymousRandom but you mean the showed in this video conzept is working even wavy condition or what are differences between?
@@MrAnonymousRandom I thought this concept here was intended for even more ideal conditions? I heard at least some Ekranoplans were able to gain quite an altitude for a bit, while this thing is basically doing the same as a magnetic head would do inside of an HDD above a spinning disk...
It is kind of beautiful when it hovers a half inch above the water. Surprised that it looks more magic than actual flying. Bravo!
My Friend, I am 70 , many things have already been invented. I enjoy seeing you Looking with fresh eyes and using engineering and imagination to invent a ground effect craft.
I believe this is a winning concept. As I am a surfer and motorcyclist , I know my applied physics.
Go for It !
When my kids were little I would tow them behind a bicycle on the hard low tide sand at the beach sitting atop a ground effect type of sled made out of plywood. Needed a bit of headwind but as soon as it started flying it was almost effortless to tow. The final iteration had a canard type elevator that they would control. Had a few mishaps but with a helmet on they never got hurt , much. It certainly didn’t put them off doing it at any opportunity.
The soviets actually created a ground effect aircraft but it was costly to maintain and it only can fly at calm waters
There's definite advantages to it though in fuel efficiency and speed. They just need to make it a boat instead of an aircraft.
Ekranoplan
Some amphibious airplanes use the ground effect to take off from water, like Beriev Be-200 - It sits down on it's arse when it gets up to take off speed (about 180-200 kph, 111-124 mph depending on the current water load).
Ekranoplans 'flew' in all types of conditions ... The Caspian Sea Monster' flew with 2-3 metres seas ... 50 years ago ... there are many sizes and versions over the years ... nothing new here ....
Correct, it was called an Ekranoplan. It had 10 jet engines, 8 at the front to create enough downdraft to get it into ground effect, then the 2 at the rear for forward propulsion; it weighted over 260 tons, could lift 600 tons and flew at over 300mph. All in all an abslotue brutal monster. But, it could only fly in calm conditions and was too far advanced for it's time and far to complex/costly to maintain. The designer, Rostislav Alexeyev, then came up with a smaller, prop driven, version named the Orlyonok which was more suited as a troop carrier than a massive lift transporter. Only 3 were ever built and the design bureau finally ended up with a smaller version of the Ekranoplan that carried cruise missiles and was used as an anti-ship attack plane. So, nothing new with this guy's thought process at all - maybe he needs to read a couple of history books though?
With a proximity sensor, you can program it to automatically adjust fan speeds so it doesn't get slapped onto the water.
that feels like cheating
? pilots just use the throttle......
Daniel - just watched some other RUclipsr “beta testing” a new model of RC plane they were sent. Watching that video was so frustrating for me! Realized that you spoil all of us curious peeps by sharing your thought process in such GREAT detail. Had to come over here and thank you for that! Looking forward to “riding along” on your houseboat build! Those little Boston Whalers are CLASSIC. Just needed someone who knew what they’re doing to own it! 👍🏼
Man that camera angle takes it from a good video to a wonderful masterpiece!
Added effect of the wedge wing is that when you leave ground effect the vortices would create HUGE drag behind the wing as the vortices start to flow into the low pressure area inside the ram.
Good on you for giving it a go! I guess that's why hydrofoils were developed, more efficient lift and thrust through a denser medium and easier feedback control plus the ability to be perched high on rough water.
back in the 60's, popular mechanics had full plans for a working boat that used ground effect and an outbout on a tail 10 feet back.
i saw one of these in action on a river in Alaska
I live by Galveston. I’m amazed at the 8’ wing span pelicans that glide over the surface of the water just inches from it. They all fly in a line and when the waves rise, they simply lift up enough to clear it. It has to be pressure under neath of them because everyone mimics the next. Pressure sensors is what is needed. 😎
Alright, so instead of aerodynamically stable in ground effect, how about some sort of built-in mechanical stabilization? I’m envisioning a floaty thing rigidly attached to a linkage that pivots and deflects the elevator control surface so that you’ll get full up elevator when at 0 altitude and full down elevator when above ~1ft out of ground effect. Basically leverage the nature of ground effect with the surface of water available to do work on your system for you
Could be problematic because of the relative size of waves and the float, there will be probably quite heavy oscillations. The aerodynamik stabilisation could be the smoothest one possible at this scale, like we could see in the video
That sounds like a concept similar to the arm that trails in the water to control the hydrofoils on a moth class foiling sailboat.
@@GunganWorks wow, did not know about this. Turns out they’re called ‘sensor wands’ and do exactly this. Now I really wanna see Daniel try it out
@@GunganWorks
YES!!!
Thats what I thought.
REALLY cool boats, the moth's
Man that's awesome, brings back the feeling I had as a kid when I discovered hovercrafts, opens up a whole new kind of vehicle
Actually, this is a very old concept with several existing real size craft built...
@@KjetilBalstad Yeah I said I discovered them as in like, personal discovery, I didn't invent them or anything, obviously lol
WTF you think invented hovercraft .... lol ripoff artist !
I love the judgmental looks from the geese 😂😂
"Now you are getting the kids excited about your UFOs again!!"
The little drawings where you explain everything at the beginning make a pretty awesome video.
Wow, those super low angle shots of it gliding are probably th most satisfying shots I have ever seen! Thanks for all of the work, and to do it with out a camera man to shoot while you fly, very impressive!
Looks great, your video is on point!
I tried a few ram wing designs years ago, but only ever on land. I got one stable with only rudder\throttle control though it was quite sketchy. The basic principle of a ram wing in ground effect with a lifting tail well out of ground effect gives you passive pitch stability, and as long as it stays low it's also self stabilizing in roll. If it does get out of ground effect it's game over, ask me how I know!
I actually strayed away from any power assisted ram effect after some testing, it's just one more variable in already tricky stability. Though you certainly proved it can work if handled carefully.
I've got an idea swirling for a wheeled ground effect craft now.
what sort of aspect ratio were your wings?
Меня умиляет, как вы на полном серьезе разбираете физический эффект экранирования, на базе которого ещё в СССР были разработаны экранопланы, называя это Новым принципом! Такие машины строились ещё в 50-60х годах прошлого столетия. Вы необразованные популисты!
I had built something similar using a small 2 stroke glow gas engine while I was stationed at Edwards AFB CA. 1990 -1997 It took me about 5 years of tweaking before I could get it to fly 2 inches above the water for the whole time I had fuel (about 7 minutes of flight time) I gave it to a friend when I PCS'd to Beale AFC California.
I would think that if you shaped that wedge under the nose like the bow of a boat, you would reduce the stress on your structure when slowing down. Otherwise, I am thoroughly enjoying these experiments!
I think that's how the USSR setup the initial Ekranoplans in the '70s..
It's amazing we have these super powerful electric motors and batteries these days. When I was a kid in the 1970's and playing with motor aircraft, you could only dream of stuff like drones and things. The materials are so much better these days as well with styro foam etc. Doped paper over balsa Wood anyone! Fantastic educational video and a great build. Keep them coming!
The celebratory "waaaah it works!" is the greatest thing ever haha
i find it interesting how you can see the wind turbulence in the smooth glassy water(when its there anyway) well done!
For the "Really too heavy to fly normally" ground effect vehicles, look into that one italian-born-soviet-designer madlad with a ground effect aircraft carrier. Robert Bartini.
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 operation in 1966, and was continuously tested by the Soviet Navy until 1980 when it crashed into the Caspian Sea
@@justinschreiner2352 i dont know about crash, but its still stands on the Caspian sea coast.
1. What effect does the wingspan have on the system? Would you be able to cruise higher with more wingspan?
2. Maybe you could use some smoke on the water on a cold morning to show the airflow and vortices?
I would suggest some Deep Purple music in the background for that video.
@@matthewcragg3607 maybe he should set a nearby building on fire to create the smoke. with a flare gun for example.
i don't think it would go higher, just it's gonna get to the desirable height quicker.
@@larsh.1154 great suggestion man, good stuff
@@matthewcragg3607 I laughed hard at this.....thanks.
You're obviously a very bright boy as well as a gifted designer and fabricator. Awesome work, keep up the great work,
WIGE is very old.
The Soviets had enormous vehicles on the Caspian and Ural Seas that used these properties.
They were meant solely for use over lake or smaller seas waters (with no swells, as in the oceans).
They did test them over Steppe, which they worked on, but were too easily crashed.
Have you thought about hydrofoils to get it out of the water, but are so short, that they'll leave the water when in ground effect?
Suddenly, I finally understood the ground effect with your simple drawing of the wing angle over the ground : this last and the down side of the wing form themselves the sides of a virtual wing corresponding to the lift principle behind a regular wing shape. I used to see that ground effect as a venturi but i think i was wrong. Thank you !
Great concept for canal waterways. The ducks screaming 'INCOMING' 🤣
@3:53 the curiosity of the ducks made me go awwww
"A New Type of Aircraft Wing Design?" No, just a different version of the Ekranoplan.
Don't get me wrong, i would love to see this being worked out since it's an awesome thing to watch :)
Seriously, the video's really cool, the clickbait is not
0:53 is when he explains why this isn't the same as an Ekranoplan..
@@Tomartyr But he doesn't. It is exactly the same as an Ekranoplan
@@Tomartyr It's a Ekranoplan that he made less efficient.
You remind me of my friend/coworker. He always had projects like this he was doing. He left a few years back and now builds rockets at SpaceX. Such a cool guy who always made things I had no interest in seem very intriguing because his knowledge and ability to explain complex things simply always just made him a true pleasure to be around and just a good guy. Last I saw him he made a jet powered go cart 😂... and his house is 1 massive dome he designed to make a hurricane proof home because Florida.
He sounds like someone that could have a very popular RUclips channel, the house sounds fascinating.
This brought some childhood enthusiasm to build an aircraft and I had manged to build a small one like this and the anticipation to make it fly was a great adventure of learnings aerodynamics and flight surveying. It was doing a hovering from the ground, I didn't tried it out on water. I think this craft can fly from the water surface with the following considerations. Center of body mass, stabilizing tilt angles of the turbines at parallel with the horizontal craft equilibrium surfaces, reducing the higher angles of the foam surfaces. Without out the use of tilting the turbines upward it should be able to keep its nose up to produce enough angle and then produce enough trust proportionately to take off from the surface of the water and maintain a climbing projectile if the angles of the surface and its surface area ratio with its mass coming to be at proportionately.
Safe flight and Best of luck!
My thoughts have been of that same very design and I did see someone in Russia make a hoverwing of that design in a full size transport. I think they could only put in two people though. Taiwan is doing the same thing but they want to make this a ferry. Right now they have a passenger version and they are working on a bigger one that would transport vehicles. Ground effect is extremely efficient. Good job on your experiment and I enjoyed watching the video.
I think everything a ground effect vehicle can do, a hovercraft can probably do more efficiently, so that's probably why they never caught on. And the same thing also happened to hovercraft which is why large hovercraft died out
Not really, the ground effect vehicle can be much faster than a hovercraft. Thing is the hovercraft can outpace the aircushion which will make it take a nose dive. This is a problem that can be addressed to some degree by adding more power to the engines blowing air into the cushion but this is pretty inefficient. This tends to happen below 100 km/h or about 60 Mph and the fastest speed a hovercraft has achieved is about 137 km/h, 85 mph or 74 knots.
For a ground effect vehicle Increased speed will instead strengthen the ground effect, at least up to the speed of sound. I'm guessing that trying to exceed maneuvering
Edit: Hovercraft do however have a lot of advantages over ground effect vehicles (and I'm tired of writhing that so from now on they are GEV...) in that they don't need to accelerate to get off the ground. They are more akin to helicopters in that way. They can also drive as slowly as you want, slide in any direction you want that the thrust propellers or jets allow for. It's closest competitor is probably the hydrocopter which is simpler, can navigate snow, ice and water but isn't as fast.
There are a multitude of different types of vehicles and a lot of them have some special area where they excel.
Kind of. Ground effect has a huge advantage in visibility and noise, which are HUGE factors for such craft, and ground effect craft can be WAY WAY faster. It's not even close. A large one can effectively be the fastest thing on water. Hovercraft's main advantage is transitioning to land.
The problem with both though is water condition. Hovercraft do poorly and ground effect craft sink if there are ANY waves high enough to jump the cushion. You need basically still water to use it, which limits you to small bodies mostly. You can carry large loads on it very very fast, so the Soviets who really innovated this tech considered it for inland sea missile boats. Basically a giant boat carrying enough missiles to sink a fleet that can zoom out, intercept, launch, and run away before anyone can stop it. This proved a bit too niche.
Hovercraft are for amphibious ops, but it's very questionable if they actually serve a role for anyone other than special forces. No one does contested landings anymore, for good reason mind you, so there's not a huge difference between a boat that gets small landing parties on in minutes or large ones in hours... And the large one can become a portable pier, whereas the hovercraft's massive noise and spray (water OR sand) is a giant "look at me!" Sign that messes with everyone else trying to land. You don't really want it unless you only have a small party and need to get in and out VERY fast.
Sorry for the wall of text. These really shine in short range small load ferries, like between islands in an island chain. You can be choosy on weather here and passengers will pay to get around quickly, compared to traditional ferries. If needed, they can be quite big for the purpose.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd love to see full scale versions of this for racing.
F-Zero IRL
I don't know why the whole racing world has stagnated in terms of innovation and development. If they kept pushing the envelope it would keep people interested in competitive racing.
I want my scifi racing pods
Never heard of hydroplane racing?
search for "Caspian sea monster" the jolly ol USSR made something that might tickle your fancy.
ekranoplan are fantastic vehicles
russians had a plane, with rocket launchers. yrs ago..sits on a beach now..
Nice job. Perhaps you could try to use foils to get on a plane with less power and double as ram air. Maybe retractable foils once in flight. Look at sail GP for foil design ideas. Keep up the great content. I like watching designers tinker and try new ideas. Probably going to need a 3D printer to print the foils with stiffener slots for reinforcement.
You said the two main reasons for ground effect vehicles are Fuel efficiency and payload capacity. But I have a third, maybe more important reason.
The city I grew up in was always trying to use fast boats to shuttle people across a stretch of ocean. They repeatedly used hydrofoil boats to do this, but the driftwood in the water kept damaging the foil.
So a ground effect vehicle would be the perfect solution, if only a design could be found that is stable against wind and rough water.
The only way I see is to have it as a semi-autonomous vehicle where the computer can make high speed micro adjustments on the fly.
That insta360 shot was quite something, just beautiful to see it floating on air barely above the water
If this is primarily for flying above a water surface, waves will be variable enough to keep you from flying. Ground effect is a sweet spot in the envelope, but it's rarely safe. Why not put hydrofoils under the aircraft, to help raise it out of the water with less effort? You'll spend less energy getting airborn!
I was thinking something similar(not really) but use a boat prop instead to allow the use of more effective airfoils due to the equilibrium point naturally existing due to the drop in thrust as the prop raises out of the water. Using more efficient airfoils could possibly overcome the added drag of the prop in the water. But it would probably be pretty close. It would probably result in a slightly more controlled flight and less risk when waves are involved.
I was literally thinking the same thing. Hydrofoils could also cancel out the effect of any waves/chop. Working simultaneously with the angle of rhe props could make it fly dead straight.
Both of these ignore that it's supposed to be an aircraft
Also a hydrofoils drag effect on an out of water propulsion system as the foil blades exit the water would cause a lot of issues
@@opluxna2120 I wasn’t really suggesting it to be an aircraft, was more thinking utilizing the ground effect better. That’s what the whole video was about was utilizing ground effect. Limiting it to just aircraft might limit possible gains in efficiency do to the added drag from the wedge shaped airframe. I think it was really cool what he is doing. I just think that exploring other options could result in a better design overall that may or may not include any of my ideas. It doesn’t have to be an aircraft to be a ground affect vehicle.
I have never been interested in building RC vehicles But this video makes me want to Learn how😮
I can tell by your voice how shocked you were that it worked first try. That’s extremely impressive for something this complex.
Here is a crazy idea for the heavy vehicle approach: give it an auxiliary waterjet drive to get it to speed where it is planing and the wings start to provide enough lift to reduce the water drag and the aero motors are powerful enough to keep it accelerating to fully stop touching the water.
If the vehicle can be heavy then the weight of the water drive being carried around inactive should not be a big penalty, especially if it shares its battery with the aero motors. You might also be able to save some weight by skipping the tilting mechanism for PAR thrust, it might not be needed any more.
You could also have some sort of sensor in the water duct to automatically turn on the water jet whenever water is present (and motor power is on).That way it would spit out the water and make thrust any time the vehicle starts draging on water. I am not sure that this would work well though. Manually turnint it on might be better and just have it coppy the throttle setting from the aero motors whenever it is on.
Obviously this only works for boats. This kind of WIG vehicle just cannot go over land or at least can never slow down when going over land.
The only reason why i see this might be a good idea and also a bad one is, first that you could optimize the air propeller for high speed thrust, instead of low speed thrust.
(aka, low diameter, high pitch) as it does not have to get you in plane.
However it is fairly easy to just add exess power with brushless motors, and an oversized air motor meant to spin a high pitch and large diameter prop will probably be lighter than the whole water jet system.
That been said, the large prop might indeed might be less efficient in cruise than the first idea.
@@ignasanchezl My idea takes the goal as building a vehicle that is not capable of leaving ground effect. If the aero motors are just enough to keep it cruising and the water jet that can help it lift off only works on water this could produce a vehicle which does not care how you pilot it and no matter what you do it will not go out of ground effect.
I'm really curious to see experiments with rough water and hydrofoil hybrid craft. Like if it just barely flew on smooth water, but on rough water the hydrofoil skis would cut through the crests of the waves and then fly through the troughs.
ב''ה, this has perpetually been a problem for these vehicles; a design that can cope with rogue waves and rough seas would revolutionize shipping industry efficiency.
@@josephkanowitz6875 sudden hebrew
ok my dear you are a very important person i really need you to save me i have been broke for a long time due to impossibility and it is difficult for me to find a job so i beg you the best of me find 5ghc for food aid please
Parabéns pela experimentação! Precisamos de pessoas com essa pró atividade para ao menos refletir sobre possibilidades para nosso futuro! :)
da uma pesquisada sobre ekranoplanos soviéticos
It’s old science and been studied extensively. I still love the video! With the advances in battery and electric motor power and efficiency, it may make more sense now.
who needs top 5 bussfeed satisfying things when you have a ram / ground effect vehicle skimming the surface
10:02 Epic shot, watching it effortlessly snake across the water (tear in eye). Wouldn't a pusher rear mounted motor push against the natural tendancy of the wedge to lift? Also what about some bounancy wheels on the side skirts?
Maybe
Trying to use a couple 2 litre pop bottles with the motors and props inside of bottles. To neutralize lift from air flowing over the top wing
When you think about it, nature is perfect
That Tokyo drift bit cracked me right up brev
Instead of the underside rear fins you used to "trap" the effect, try using long thin balloons braced with the RC plane landing gear wire. They would help keep it up in the water and can be used as landing gear, in fact you could use ping-pong balls with the wire through the center for ground trials too.
Here's a weird thought. Have you ever thought of building a ground effect sort of vehicle that uses a variable sweep wing? You'd be able to increase speed while decreasing the lift thus keeping it in ground effect. Not sure if it's really practical at all compared to just building a plane like that though.
@@capturedflame - That's why doing it in Models is a Low Risk game.
I do notice he hasn't tried any Tufting tests, with that camera to monitor wing mods, like Upper wing Fences, vortex generators, or anything else.
86 ok my dear you are a very important person i really need you to save me i have been broke for a long time due to impossibility and it is difficult for me to find a job so i beg you the best of me find 5ghc for food aid please
One of the best things I've seen on RUclips in a very long time
amazing, it's really smooth. F1 teams struggled with porpoising when they first reintroduced ground effect in 2022.. the car would bounce up and down at higher speeds
This is guesswork but your projects probably have a high "waterdrag" to weight ratio because of scale thus needing a high power to weight ratio to get up to speed, and that is why they always end up able to fly out of ground effect. This vehicle was a great way to reduce the free flying though.
I'm wondering if you might be able increase the ground effect further, while only increasing the in-air lift a little, by making the wings even wider, and potentially shorter (Ie stubbier, and less like aircraft wings). Specifically, I'm thinking of the ram wedge staying roughly the same, then having a flat surface to maintain the pressure, and then eventually releasing it as you are currently doing. That way the aircraft will have much more chance to utilise the ground-effect that it has built up.
One challenge I'm thinking of with doing this is that shortening the wings may make it more unstable on the roll axis. Potentially this could be overcome by keeping the tip-to-tip distance the same, but removing some of the usable wing area in the middle. Eg putting in a longer fuselage, or simply having a gap between the two wings there. If you opt for the second, it could be interesting to have sides on each wing in that gap, to try to hold in the pocket of air.
Anyhoo. I could be wrong about any of this, but it could be quite interesting to experiment with. Loving this series.
The length of the wing from front to back after the wedge is important in maintaining effect at lower speeds and at higher speeds it gives you over lift.
I'm convinced you had the right idea adding the side skirts, but they aren't high enough. Perhaps another inch with tapered angles in the front and rear. Consider small sealed tubes that act like floats/skids attached to the bottom of the taller skirts. This would save the energy needed to achieve "lift off" because the craft would already be in position for the ram effect. Of course I may be entirely wrong about this, but it's a theory.
Would be interesting to see a design made to carry weight over a certain distance, as well as seeing how much weight a ground effect vehicle can carry compared to a traditional airplane. Perhaps you could make it autonomous?
Love this series ❤
+1
78 ok my dear you are a very important person i really need you to save me i have been broke for a long time due to impossibility and it is difficult for me to find a job so i beg you the best of me find 5ghc for food aid please
@@hopelife8130 what
This is awesome - why are you so interested in ground effect?
Ever since I heard about the Caspian Sea Monster (a Soviet era ground effect project) I thought with this technology you could build high speed car ferries - I thought they could be proven to cross the great Lakes (Grand Rapids to Racine for example) and later developed for long range Ocean crossings (I was thinking San Diego to Honolulu and San Francisco to Honolulu) - the later would necessitate a larger wing span to allow for rougher seas as ground effect is a function of wing span
Like hovercraft, ground effect is a watercraft/aircraft hybrid which is why I believe they suffer from lack of research and development as well as not having a well defined licensing authority
Though designed to closely hug the water high speed ground effect vehicles should have the ability to hop smaller surface vehicles if they cannot be avoided altogether - usually, with radar and transponders this shouldn't be necessary except on rare occasions
Yes. You're speaking of the Lun class Ekranoplan.
I have seen ekranoplanes soar live, they calmly fly over a boat with fishermen, the flight height above the surface to create a screen effect is about 5 to 12 meters, very stable and safe with large dimensions.
This is a wicked cool project.
It's almost a Hydroplane boat type design with the wedges on the front that could almost be considered to be "sponsons" in hydroplane terminology. Or the skirts that would be "air traps" in boat terminology.
Very smart solution of widely known physical and aero-dynamical effect which however was often underestimated.
I'm way too impressed by this. Sometimes it's just really nice to see something work just as it was engineered.
I'm pretty sure you've already seen it, but just in case, search RUclips for the video: What Happened To Giant Ekranoplans?
Would it be more effective to start with a replica of the Ekranoplans?
A ground-effect vehicle (GEV), also called a wing-in-ground-effect (WIG), ground-effect craft, wingship, flarecraft or ekranoplan (Russian: экранопла́н - "screenglider"), is a vehicle that is able to move over the surface by gaining support from the reactions of the air against the surface of the earth or water. Typically, it is designed to glide over a level surface (usually over the sea) by making use of ground effect, the aerodynamic interaction between the moving wing and the surface below. Some models can operate over any flat area such as frozen lakes or flat plains similar to a hovercraft.
Straight wingEdit
Used by the Russian Rostislav Alexeyev for his ekranoplan. The wings are significantly shorter than those of comparable aircraft, and this configuration requires a high aft-placed horizontal tail to maintain stability. The pitch and altitude stability comes from the lift slope[note 1] difference between a front low wing in ground-effect (commonly the main wing) and an aft, higher-located second wing nearly out of ground-effect (generally named a stabilizer).
Reverse-delta wingEdit
Developed by Alexander Lippisch, this wing allows stable flight in ground-effect through self-stabilization. This is the main Class B form of GEV.
Tandem wingsEdit
Tandem wings can have three configurations:
A biplane-style type-1 utilising a shoulder-mounted main lift wing and belly-mounted sponsons similar to those on combat and transport helicopters.
A canard-style type-2 with a mid-size horizontal wing[note 2] near the nose of the craft directing airflow under the main lift airfoil. This type-2 tandem design is a major improvement during takeoff, as it creates an air cushion to lift the craft above the water at a lower speed, thereby reducing water drag, which is the biggest obstacle to successful seaplane launches.
Two stubby wings as in the tandem-airfoil flairboat produced by Günther Jörg in Germany. His particular design is self-stabilizing longitudinally.
Not new.
rehashing old designs that work are always fun
The Russians built this kind of vehicle for military use, faster then a ship, more payload than an aircraft. They called it the Ekranoplan.
And the posibillity to start missiles from it. kewl shit
@@larspregge6420 anything can be weaponized, chill
@@larspregge6420 as long as they launch straight up...and scaled up with the same ratio as the foam ram vehicle to full ekranoplan...thing would be super sturdy and big enough to build something to hide from the, not so friendly fire part of the missiles.
France is all like "i'm le tired" ok, well then take a nap....BUT THEN FIRE ZE MISSILES
Just one was ever built. The fact they didn’t produce a fleet of them makes me think it didn’t live up to expectations.
Good video on ecranoplan on yt
I am from Russia and my father when he was in army drive a vehicle like this, in the real! Of course it was very big kind of a plane and kind of a boat something between!! Thank you anyway I really like your videos!
Don't say out loud that you are from Russia.
@@pandubinek6224 please don't say me what I should say, and I will not say where you should go, ok?
The Ekranoplan?
@@divizors Russians are killing children and women, what do you say to me?
@@akhileshb_ exactly 👍
Well done Sir. True, there always will be those that will remind you of the Soviet vessel that used " Ground Effect " to discourage you, but pay them no mind.
The Hover Craft, is, and was an awesome invention, still used by the US military, despite it's high operating costs. Commercially, I always felt that there was value to such a vessel, should you manage to reduce running costs, and increase commercial value.
I believe we need some sort of vessel such as this, even if it is just a ferry.
Keep at it, and I wish you the best of success.
Greetings from a Boer in South Africa.
I swear, right before you mentioned the geese, it seemed as if they were monitoring your process. "He's close to flight" "noo he's not" I feel their interest shows your on the right track
It’s like a semi-majestic swan when still on the water
65 nice my dear but today i realy need u to save me im broke this year due to sickness so i beg u the best with respect to found me 5ghc for food help please
Yes, ground effect is a proven phenomenon, and the Soviets did a lot of research in this area. However, you need to also consider the practical implications --- you couldn't fly that low over land safely for any distance, and for that matter flying low over open ocean could be hazardous in some conditions.
Hm...so what I'm hearing is you'd probably need a dedicated road on which to use these. Probably one that's intended just for this purpose, since mixing with regular stop-and-go traffic could be challenging. Since this type of design isn't particularly well-explored we'd probably want a bunch of different ones, and we could have them race to pick the best design, so we'd want to arrange the road in a loop. We also want to be able to easily tell the designs apart, so maybe each one could be uniquely decorated and colored, and each pilot could have their own costume. With a cool name, like...I dunno, Captain Foul Kahn or Samurai Goron or something.
the RAF.... Hold my beer. Decades of flying stupid low across the uk. Check out the buccaneer, get low then push the stick forward and wouldnt crash. The RN hated it as would fly at sea level.
@@gigatesla Cloudy Mac James approves of this sport and of genetically modifying animals into humanoid space mercs.
@@derf9465 you would have to be within 1-2 wingspans of the ground ... I doubt they were in ground effect as much as you thought they were. Also, would you want your commercial airline pilot doing everything that an RAF fighter pilot does? :-)
Look up the Moth class sail boat. It’s a hydrofoil boat with a little feeler thing hanging down from the bow to adjust a trim tab on the hydrofoil to adjust the height above the water 💦.
Suggestion for a modification to this craft
Triple the "wing"span by adding two more sections on the sides. It'll make more ram air and add some weight.
It'd be real interesting to see this scaled up a little, on an autonomous flight, and a forward facing radar to sense waves and use it to adjust height? Probably need rudder or something first though. :D I love your projects!
I would love to see someone make a larger version of this using composite materials. As a test to see if scaling up the design is at all viable for a real vehicle.
Good name
It's not. The distance from the water doesn't change much as you scale this up.
Check out the Ekranoplan.
@@shieldaigbencher the ecranoplan uses Ground Effect, this does not.
Take a look @ThinkFlight channel's latest videos. A different ekranoplan design, but one large enough to cary a human. His project started with a scale model, that has been scaled up.
Adding two parallel knives of the same material to either side of the wing on the bottom, will:
1- Enhance altitude stability near water. This would be more of a hover craft effect, where the crafts wants to get lower when the gap is too big, instead of doing a back-flip.
2- Enhance pitch stability. This would happen it three ways:
A- when angle is too low, the knives prevent the air from going out the sides, creating more lift at lower speeds.
B- when angle is too large (nose moving up), more air goes out the sides causes exponentially less lifft as the angle increases (depends on the slope of knife angle).
C - when nose is too high, the back of the knives will drag on the water pulling the nose down as an extra precaution. Shape of the knives should be similar to machette blade where the wide tip is the back of knife.
Here's a fact, when its skimming over calm water it looks bad ass. So that's a win for sure.
You mentioned testing a heavier version, and was worried about the speed/power needed to gain enough ram pressure to lift it out of the water. What if you used small hydrofoils attached to your wing skirts? That way, the hydrofoil lifts the bulk of the weight out of the water, then you could transition to ram flight? Cool project!!
Or a baloon like hoovers have, and as it start yo pick up it could be rectracable
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 operation in 1966, and was continuously tested by the Soviet Navy until 1980 when it crashed into the Caspian Sea
@@justinschreiner2352 yes saw the document about it, technology has improved quite a bit since than
Probably the weather is even more important than in shipping, i think 2-3 m waves can mess up the effect a bit or big winds ;) weather forecast improved since a lot, enough to see how much the turbulance on airplains are non existent
While they tring to push towards EV vehicles, the freight shipping does more than 70% of air pollution, and companies/share holders wont accept the extra cost if its not an investment with short return
Huge sails would be great, but would make the journey way too long
I wonder how much electricity would be possible to create if they would cover freight ships with solar panels, would the ship be able to move?!
Great job! You are a genius. You should be working for a company that designs aircraft.
I heard S4 is hiring
Such a genius that his 'novel design' is just an Ekranoplan that has been around since the 70's.
Please make this video available to HS science teachers!! This is the type of "show & Tell" that keep our young interested in their potential and NOT doing dope and being hoodlums. This video could give motivation and hope to another generation.
How did you settle on that length of wing? Would longer wings make the ground effect work better, and therefore improve the efficiency of the craft, or would it generate too much lift? This is fascinating.
This is awesome. Congrats! Great photography too. Was that really an otter?
May I make a suggestion/idea? With this design, it seems like air under the "wing" is crucial, so why not just move the air where you need it?
This idea is based on how "bladeless" fans work. Inside their "ring"/circle structure, they push air from a small fan out of the back of the "ring." Since it has an airfoil design, the theory says that that fast air decreases the pressure, thus "outside" air tries to fill the gap and increases the total air going inside the ring.
So, if you put a fan (horizontally) in the nose to pull air in (giving the nose some trust from the air suction) and you push the air at the tip of the "wing" in your design… it should create a low pressure very close to the wing itself, and more (faster) air should come in between it and the water.
Just some random thoughts, but I think if this worked you could keep the nose up even standing still.
0:43 Finally someone actually understands lift. For whatever reason the archaic idea of "It MUST have an airfoil!" pervades.
I guess none of them have seen 3d planes. Deflection angle and power (including passive) is all that's required.
So basically you're building a Soviet ekranoplan aka The Caspian sea monster. A jet powered ground effect vehicle so large it was classified as the world's heaviest airlpane, took 50 soldiers and had a jamming suite and cruise missiles which was a concern but did it at a cruising speed of 270 mph and top of 310 mph. These things were never mass produced I believe 1 was ever finished but what a beast of a machine. Never became a thing because an errant wave or crosswind would lift them up as if flew 16 feet above the water so one wave and it would basically become a cruise missile with a human payload. But imagine sitting in it 16 feet bove the water at 310 mph. That must have looked so incredibly fast, damn I wish that these things were still here. But the wind and waves seem like it would be disastrous here too. Still great work