Jamaican Ekranoplan

[kitflubber]

Greg (Cthulhu77) and I had discussed a tourist Ekranoplan, either a refurbished Soviet Era plane, or a brand new design. Mine is the brand new design version...

[Spey_Phantom]

*jamaican mode on*

jah man, me like them ekranoplan ight therea.
mebe with a rastafarian flag on da tail 

good luck brotha 

*jamaican mode off*

[kitflubber]

Top view:

[The Rat]

Pity it isn't based on a real plane or I would have a crack at that. 

[Weaver]

Didn't somebody do a similar idea to this a few years ago? I'm sure I saw it when trawling through old threads, but I can't recall where now.

Anyway, damn fine idea: could be done with a modern 1/144th scale airliner, some cut-down 1/72nd fighter plane wings and 1/72nd tip floats. The latter would probably come from an old float plane that might be able to donate it's hull, too. You could do the dome with a 1/72nd two-seat fighter canopy.

An engineering, not modelling, suggestion: I suspect that the engines would have to be a bit bigger, a bit further forwards, and tiltable to blow air under the wing for the initial "unstick". Rather than have the complexities of tilting engines, you could have them fixed on forward-swept winglets, with tilting propellors on the end of extension shafts, which would also help them clear the forward-swept trailing edge.

We skimmin'
we skimmin'
we skimmin'
we skimmin'
we skimmin' Caribbean seeeeeaaaaaaa

[The Rat]

Didn't somebody do a similar idea to this a few years ago? I'm sure I saw it when trawling through old threads, but I can't recall where now.

'Twere I. The thread here is long gone, but you can find the ARC one here.

The last sentence takes some explaining; a few months previous to that ARC had been seriously hacked by some snot calling himself Latin Pimp. It caused a lot of damage and drove Steve to consider things which a nice guy like him wouldn't even dream about. The project was only about half-way done by that time so I dropped the original backstory and re-wrote another using the unknown perpetrator as a foil. Steve was quite tickled about it! 

[kitflubber]

Weaver, yeah I thought about that too -- will consider.

The Rat: too cool!

[kitflubber]

In progress - a quick render.



rough view out a side window.

[kitflubber]

Weaver, it was not clear in that image, I took some of your advice/suggestions and lengthened the fuselage, and the engine pods will be on pivots to aim downward on takeoff. this is an earlier render:

[kitflubber]

Another shot.

[Weaver]

Excellent! 

[kitflubber]

very rough simulation of beer bonging Spring Breakers on Observation Deck.