In the '60s, Soviet leaders boasted of being able to build a ship that could jump up and cross bridges. His obscure language has puzzled Western countries.
What he's talking about is about creating a means of transport that the world has never seen before, a ship that doesn't touch the surface of the water and is as fast as an airplane.
For decades, the Soviet Union secretly developed all kinds of unique technologies, but these huge and otherworldly aircraft disappeared with the fall of the Soviet Union...
In the 1950s, hydrofoils were the fastest ships in the world at the time, and the bottom of the ship was equipped with something similar to a wing, which was a revolutionary design at the time.
Hydrofoil pulls the bottom and surface of the water apart to reduce drag to lift speed, but this design also fails to achieve speeds of more than 110 kilometers per hour because a phenomenon called "cavitation" disrupts the lift generated by the hydrofoil. Engineers at the time couldn't solve this problem.
But one of the pioneer hydrofoil designers of the Soviet Union, Rostislav Alekseyev, had a radical idea —
It is better to put the hydrofoil directly outside the water surface.
This means moving from hydrodynamics to aerodynamics, increasing speed to unprecedented speeds, so fast that you can lift a ship directly off the surface of the water without having to fly as high as an airplane, just flying at a small altitude on the surface of the water.
Engineers have long noticed that the closer you get to the ground when landing or flying, the more the lift of the plane increases, just like not letting the plane land.
This phenomenon is the wing-in-ground effect (wig).
Alekseyev plans to use this phenomenon to realize his new idea, and he makes small models to prove his theory, but he needs more money to develop the concept. So in the 60s, he proved to the Soviet Union that this concept could be used for military development.
The spacecraft hybrid, known as the Caspian Monster Ground Effect Vehicle, is as fast as an airplane, and at a low altitude it can avoid radar without contact with the surface of the water, nor can sonar detectors detect it, as well as avoid mines.
With these unique features, ground effect vehicles can access shallow coastlines and beaches that are not accessible to conventional boats, and at a very reasonable cost.
This aircraft-ship hybrid immediately gained a lot of attention from the Soviet military, including Soviet leader Khrushchev, who was always susceptible to such 'big' and novel technologies, especially when the United States did not yet have them.
With a steady stream of military funding, Alekseyev's team began to "expand" the idea.
In just five years, they went from small prototypes weighing no more than a few tons to 265 tons.
It is indeed a Caspian monster, code-named -km(Корабль-макет, meaning "ship-prototype".
This thing looks like something that only appeared in science fiction films, km carries a load of 600 tons at the same time, and can also exceed 500 kilometers per hour. Developed in 1966, it was the largest aircraft in the world at that time, with a lift-to-drag ratio (l/d) that could not be "mechanically" achieved.
To give the massive aircraft a ground effect, eight front-mounted jet engines provided directional thrust under the wings, creating a temporary air cushion.
Once ground effect is entered, turn off the jet engines in front. Just two engines running are enough to make this 600-ton monster fly at the speed of an airplane.
A huge five-story tail was used to counteract flight instabilities in ground effects and maintain high-speed control.
Km was first tested in 1966 and proved that ground effect vehicles can be scaled up. But at the same time, it also shows some serious flaws.
The km structure is not perfect and requires reliable maintenance. Its ten jet engines are continuously damaged by seawater and foreign objects.
He was also notorious for his difficulty in controlling. Flying safely in the ground effect is really exhausting for the pilot,
Km Turns require long distances, which means you must be aware of other boats and obstacles before turning.
Weather influences are also one of the difficulties, and km could have been run in waves up to 1.5 meters high – which sounds good, but I'm afraid I haven't seen a video of test flights other than when the water is calm. Test flights on the high seas in bad weather are nearly impossible. Km therefore can only operate in inland oceans with better weather conditions, such as the Caspian Sea. Not to mention crossing five oceans.
The difficulties necessitated the engineering team to start from scratch and hope for further development, and Alexeyev's team should be able to solve most of the km problems.
But it was too late.
Km On the first flight, a new Soviet leader came to power. Brezhnev was neither impatient nor very conservative, and he believed that the development of ground effect aircraft was in vain. Instead, they prefer aircraft artillery for military projects.
This is bad news for Alekseyev.
In 1968, Alekseyev was demoted from director and chief designer of the Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau to head of the Ground Effects Aircraft Program, and his power was greatly reduced.
With too many technical problems and less and less money, Alexeyev's team shifted its focus from km to developing a smaller and more practical ground effect vehicle — an aircraft that could transport about 150 soldiers and use ground effects on the beach.
But these additional features are based on compromises, and load capacity must be reduced like large seaplanes.
Due to the skepticism of many Soviet leadership with ground effect vehicles, only three were eventually able to serve in the Soviet Navy.
Even though Alekseyev's ground effect vehicles were fast, they couldn't outpace the Soviet Union's subsequent recession.
With dwindling funding, Alekseyev began a "cold war" with the Soviet leadership.
In 1975, his impatience with the Soviet bureaucracy finally brought trouble to him, and he was demoted again, this time to an ordinary employee, and his career ended.
But until the 1980s, the Ground Effect Vehicle program was still under development, not as large as km, but could carry six anti-ship cruise missiles and hit targets more than 100 kilometers away, though only one prototype was built.
Even more regrettably, Alekseyev could not have seen it take off.
In 1980, Rostislav Alekseyev died at the age of 63. His vision never materialized.
By the mid-1980s, funding for the development of ground effect vehicles had decreased.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the remaining ground effect vehicles were rapidly retired, ending nearly 40 years of development.
However, the former Soviet Union and other parts of the world have always been optimistic about the potential of ground effect vehicles, and continue to develop small ground effect aircraft.
This leaves an interesting question that still has no answer:
With km, Alekseyev's team proved that the heavier the ground effect vehicle, the better its flight performance, becoming more stable, flying higher, and more efficient. Can an aircraft that is much larger than km be the key to unlocking the potential of technology?
So far, such aircraft have been unable to attract the huge amount of money needed for development, which at least means that the huge ground effect vehicle can only become a historical relic of the Cold War.
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