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The Pororoca
The pororoca is a tidal bore, with waves up to 4 meters high that travel as much as 13 kilometers inland upstream on the Amazon River. Its name comes from the indigenous Tupi language, where it translates into "great destructive noise". It occurs at the mouth of the river where river water meets the Atlantic Ocean. The phenomenon is best seen in February and March.
The wave has become popular with surfers. Since 1999, an annual championship has been held in São Domingos do Capim. However, surfing the Pororoca is especially dangerous, as the water contains a significant amount of debris from the shores of the river (often entire trees), in addition to dangerous fauna. In 2003 the Brazilian Picuruta Salazar won the event with a record ride of 12.5 kilometers during 37 minutes.
Along the branches or "caños" in the Orinoco Delta, pororoca is known as macareo, which is also the name of one of these branches.
Other interesting websites about The Pororoca : playak
Source : Wikipedia
Anna Mitchell-Hedges and a Crystal Skull.
The Pororoca Tidel Wave
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The Pororoca Tidel Wave
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The Balaklava Submarine Base
Balaklava (Ukrainian: Балаклава, Russian: Балаклава, Crimean Tatar: Balıqlava) is a town on the Crimean peninsula in a district of the city of Sevastopol which carries a special administrative status in Ukraine. It was a city in its own right until 1957 when it was formally incorporated into the municipal borders of Sevastopol by the Soviet government.
History
Balaklava has changed hands many times during its history. A settlement at its present location was originally founded under the name of Symbolon (Συμβολον) by the Ancient Greeks, for whom it was an important commercial city. During the Middle Ages, it was controlled by the Byzantine Empire and then by the Genoese who conquered it in 1365. The Byzantines called the town Yamboli and the Genoese named it Cembalo. The Genoese built a large trading empire in both the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, buying slaves in Eastern Europe and shipping them to Egypt via the Crimea, a lucrative market hotly contested with by the Venetians. It is believed that it was on board a Genoese trading cog sailing back to Genoa from Balaklava (or Kaffa, according to some chronicles) that the Black Death first arrived in Europe in the mid-14th c. The ruins of a Genoese fortress positioned high on a clifftop above the entrance to the Balaklava Inlet are a popular tourist attraction and have recently become the stage for a Medieval festival. The fortress is a subject of Mickiewicz's penultimate poem in his 1825 cycle of Crimean Sonnets.
In 1475 the growing Ottoman Empire took possession of Balaklava renaming it Balıklava ("a fish nest" in Turkish ), which was slowly corrupted over time to its present form. During the Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774, the Russian troops conquered the Crimea in 1771. Thirteen years later, Crimea was definitively annexed by the Russian Empire. After that, Crimean Tatar and Turkish population was replaced by Greeks from the Archipelago. In 1787 the city was visited by Catherine the Great.
The town became famous for the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War thanks to the suicidal Charge of the Light Brigade, a British cavalry charge due to a misunderstanding sent up a valley strongly held on three sides by the Russians, in which about 250 men were killed or wounded, and over 400 horses lost, effectively reducing the size of the mounted brigade by two thirds and destroying some of the finest light cavalry in the world to no military purpose. The British poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson immortalized this battle in verse. The balaclava, a tight knitted garment covering the whole head and neck with holes for the eyes and mouth, also takes its name from this settlement, where soldiers first wore them.
During the Second World War, Balaklava was the southernmost point in the Soviet-German lines. In 1954 Balaklava, together with the whole Crimea, passed from Russia to Ukraine. It became part of the independent state of Ukraine in 1991. Today there are over 50 monuments in the town dedicated to the remembrance of military valour in past wars, including the Great Patriotic War, the Crimean War and the Russian Civil War.
Nuclear submarine base
One of the monuments is an underground, formerly classified submarine base that was operational until 1993. The base was said to be virtually indestructible and designed to survive a direct atomic impact. During that period, Balaklava was one of the most secret residential areas in the Soviet Union. Almost the entire population of Balaklava at one time worked at the base; even family members could not visit the town of Balaklava without a good reason and proper identification. The base remained operational after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 until 1993 when the decommissioning process started. This process saw the removal of the warheads and low-yield torpedoes. In 1996, the last Russian submarine left the base, which is now open to the public for guided tours around the canal system, the base, and a small museum, which is now housed in the old ammunition warehouse deep inside the hillside.
Source : Wikipedia
The Balaklava Submarine Base
Holy Dog - Saint Guinefort
Saint Guinefort was a 13th century French dog that received local veneration as a saint after miracles were reported at his grave.
His story is a variation on the well-travelled "faithful hound" motif, similar to the Welsh story of the dog Gelert. Guinefort the greyhound belonged to a knight who lived in a castle near Lyon. One day, the knight went hunting, leaving his infant son in the care of Guinefort. When he returned, he found the nursery in chaos – the cot was overturned, the child was nowhere to be seen and Guinefort greeted his master with bloody jaws. Believing Guinefort to have devoured his son, the knight slew the dog. He then heard a child crying; he turned over the cot and found his son lying there, safe and sound, along with the body of a viper. Guinefort had killed the snake and saved the child. On realizing the mistake the family dropped the dog down a well, covered it with stones and planted trees around it, setting up a shrine for Guinefort. Guinefort became recognised by locals as a saint for the protection of infants. It was alleged by contemporary commentators that locals left their babies at the site to be healed by the dog, and sometimes the babies would be harmed or killed by the rituals involved:
The local peasants hearing of the dog's noble deed and innocent death, began to visit the place and honor the dog as a martyr in quest of help for their sicknesses and other needs. They were seduced and often cheated by the Devil so that he might in this way lead men into error. Women especially, with sick or poorly children, carried them to the place, and went off a league to another nearby castle where an old woman could teach them a ritual for making offerings and invocations to the demons and lead them to the right spot. When they got there, they offered salt and certain other things, hung the child's little clothes (diapers?) on the bramble bushes around, fixing them on the thorns. They then put the naked baby through the opening between the trunks of two trees, the mother standing on one side and throwing her child nine times to the old woman on the other side, while invoking the demons to adjure the fauns in the wood of "Rimite" to take the sick and failing child which they said belonged to them (the fauns) and return to them their own child big, plump, live and healthy. Once this was done, the killer mothers took the baby and placed it naked at the foot of the tree on the straws of a cradle, lit at both ends two candles a thumbsbreadth thick with fire they had brought with them and fastened them on the trunk above. Then, while the candles were consumed, they went far enough away that they could neither hear nor see the child. In this way the burning candles burned up and killed a number of babies, as we have heard from others in the same place.
Stephen de Bourbon (d. 1262): De Supersticione: On St. Guinefort
This later became the international folktale known as ‘The Faithful Hound.’ Etienne de Bourbon, an Inquisitor of the Roman Church, recorded that in the 13th century in the area around Lyon some women had taken their infants to saint Guinefort. Bourbon’s job as an Inquisitor was to try to get people to have the ‘right’ ideas about saints and god, and to stamp out false idols.
At first Bourbon thought Saint Guinefort to be human, but he recorded in his notebooks that that he “finally learned that this was actually a greyhound which had been killed…. The peasants, hearing of the dog’s conduct and of how it had been killed, although innocent, and for a deed for which it might have expected praise, visited the place and honoured the dog as a martyr, [and] prayed to it when they were sick or in need of something…”
Thinking the sainthood of a dog to be scandalous, the mean-hearted Etienne de Bourbon had the dog’s body disinterred and the sacred wood cut down and burnt (along with the remains of the dog). Thus it appears that, at least to the Inquisition, a dog cannot officially become a saint, but it can become an official heretic!
Despite the best efforts of the inquisitors to eradicate the cult of Saint Guinefort the Greyhound, people continued to visit his grave up until the 1940s, and there are ruins of a chapel dedicated to Saint Guinefort at Trevon in Brittany (Cotes d’Armor).
Saint Guinefort in popular culture
The 1987 French film Le Moine et la sorcière (in USA The Sorceress) depicts the controversy over St. Guinefort as seen through the eyes of Fr. Etienne de Bourbon, a Dominican inquisitor and the author of the above passage. The legend of Saint Guinefort has a small but pivotal role in the novel The Stolen Child (2006) by Keith Donohue. Thomas of Hookton, the main character in Bernard Cornwell's The Grail Quest trilogy (2000-2003), was a believer in Saint Guinefort, praying to the saint and wearing a paw on a piece of leather around his neck.
Cynocephaly - Dog Head
The condition of cynocephaly, having the head of a dog — or of a jackal— is a widely attested legendary phenomenon existing in many different forms and contexts. The word is taken from Latin cynocephalus "dog-head", which derives from Greek: κῠνοκέφᾰλοι.
Ancient Greece and Egypt
Cynocephaly was familiar to the Ancient Greeks from representations of the Egyptian god Hapi, the son of Horus, and Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead, always shown with the head of a jackal. The Greek word (Greek: κῠνοκέφᾰλοι) "dog-head" also identified a sacred Egyptian baboon with the face of a dog.
Reports of dog-headed races can also be traced back to Greek antiquity. In the fifth century BC, the Greek physician Ctesias wrote a detailed report on the existence of cynocephali in India.. Similarly, the Greek traveller Megasthenes claims to know about dog-headed people in India who live in the mountains, communicate through barking, wear the skins of wild animals and live by hunting.
Medieval East
Cynocephali also figure in Christian world-views. A legend that placed St. Andrew and St. Bartholomew among the Parthians presented the case of "Abominable," the citizen of the "city of cannibals... whose face was like unto that of a dog." After receiving baptism, however, he was released from his doggish aspect.
Saint Christopher
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, certain icons covertly identify Saint Christopher with the head of a dog. The background to the dog-headed Christopher is laid in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian, when a man named Reprebus, Rebrebus or Reprobus (the "reprobate" or "scoundrel") was captured in combat against tribes dwelling to the west of Egypt in Cyrenaica. To the unit of soldiers, according to the hagiographic narrative, was assigned the name numerus Marmaritarum or "Unit of the Marmaritae", which suggests an otherwise-unidentified "Marmaritae" (perhaps the same as the Marmaricae Berber tribe of Cyrenaica). He was reported to be of enormous size, with the head of a dog instead of a man, apparently a characteristic of the Marmaritae.
The German bishop and poet Walter of Speyer portrayed St. Christopher as a giant of a cynocephalic species in the land of the Chananeans (the "canines" of Canaan in the New Testament) who ate human flesh and barked. Eventually, Christopher met the Christ child, regretted his former behavior, and received baptism. He, too, was rewarded with a human appearance, whereupon he devoted his life to Christian service and became an athlete of God, one of the soldier-saints.
Late Antiquity
The "cynocephali" offered such an evocative image of the magic and brutality deemed characteristic of bizarre people of distant places, that it kept returning in medieval literature. A number of late antique and medieval scholars reported on the Cynocephalae, sometimes with the aplomb of anthropologists:
Augustine
Isidore of Seville
Medieval West
Paul the Deacon mentions cynocephali in his Historia gentis Langobardorum: "They pretend that they have in their camps Cynocephali, that is, men with dogs' heads. They spread the rumor among the enemy that these men wage war obstinately, drink human blood and quaff their own gore if they cannot reach the foe." The ninth-century Frankish theologian Ratramnus wrote a letter, the Epistola de Cynocephalis, on whether the Cynocephali should be considered human. Quoting St. Jerome, Thomas of Cantimpré corroborated the existence of Cynocephali in his Liber de Monstruosis Hominibus Orientis, xiv, ("Book of Monstrous men of the Orient"). The thirteenth-century encyclopedist Vincent of Beauvais acquainted his patron Saint Louis IX of France with "an animal with the head of the dog but with all other members of human appearance… Though he behaves like a man… and, when peaceful, he is tender like a man, when furious, he becomes cruel and retaliates on humankind" (Speculum naturale, 31:126). In Anglo-Saxon England, the Old English word wulfes heafod “wolf’s head” was a technical term for an outlaw, who could be killed as if he were a wolf. The so-called Leges Edwardi Confessoris, written around 1140, however, offered a somewhat literal interpretation: “For from the day of his outlawry he bears a wolf’s head, which is called wluesheued by the English. And this sentence is the same for all outlaws.” Cynocephali appear in the Old Welsh poem Pa Gur? as cinbin (dogheads). Here they are enemies of King Arthur's retinue; Arthur's men fight them in the mountains of Eidyn (Edinburgh), and hundreds of them fall at the hand of Arthur's warrior Bedwyr (later known as Bedivere). The next lines of the poem also mention a fight with a character named Garwlwyd (Rough-Gray); a Gwrgi Garwlwyd (Man-Dog Rough-Grey) appears in one of the Welsh Triads, where he is described in such a way that scholars have discussed him as a werewolf.
High and late medieval travel literature
Medieval travellers Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and Marco Polo both mention cynocephali. Giovanni writes of the armies of Ogedei Khan who encounter a race of dogheads who live north of the Dalai-Nor (Northern Ocean), or Lake Baikal . Polo's Travels mention the dog-headed barbarians on the island of Angamanain, or the Andaman Islands. For Polo, although these people grow spices, they are nonetheless cruel and "are all just like big mastiff dogs" .
According to Henri Cordier, the source of all the fables of the dog-headed barbarians, whether European, Arabic, or Chinese, can be found in the Alexander Romance.
China
Additionally, in the Chinese record History of the Liang Dynasty (Liang Shu), the Buddhist missionary Hui-Sheng describes an island of dog-headed men to the east of Fusang, a nation he visited variously identified as Japan or the Americas. While the 'History of Northern Dynasties' of Li Yanshou, a T'Ang Dynasty historian, also mentions the 'dog kingdom'.
Modern appearances
The use of dog-headed, human-bodied characters is still very strong in modern literature. In the domain of comics publishing in North America and in Europe many works feature an "all-cynocephalic" cast or use the heads of dogs and other animals together for social comment or other purposes. For instance, in the Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman, Jews have human bodies and the heads of mice while characters with their roots in the United States have human bodies and the heads of dogs, Germans have the heads of cats, and the French have the heads of frogs. The hero of Baudolino, a novel by Umberto Eco, has to face them at the end of his journey. Whereas at the beginning of A Dog's Head, a novel by Jean Dutourd, a woman gives birth to a child with a dog's head. Dog-headed creatures based on the ancient accounts appear in many modern role-playing games, beginning with the Gnolls of Dungeons & Dragons.
Other dog-headed creatures in legend
The Chinese mythology of Fu Xi included variations where he had a dogs head, or he and his sister Nu Wa had ugly faces.
The Egyptian god Anubis.
In the USA there are tales of dog-headed creatures, including the Dogman of Michigan, and the wolf-like Beast of Bray Road of Wisconsin, which terrorised a neighbourhood in the early 1990s.
The Wulver of the Scottish Shetland Isles.
Psoglav in Serbian mythology.
The Nacumerians, in The Voyage and Travels of Sir John Mandeville.
Other interesting websites about Saint Guinefort : beyond-the-pale
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Ground effect vehicle Aka Ekranoplan
A ground effect vehicle (GEV) is one that attains level flight near the surface of the Earth, made possible by a cushion of high-pressure air created by the aerodynamic interaction between the wings and the surface known as ground effect. Also known as a wing-in-ground-effect (WIG) vehicle, flarecraft, sea skimmer, ekranoplan, or wing-in-surface-effect ship (WISE), a GEV can be seen as a transition between a hovercraft and an aircraft. The International Maritime Organization, (IMO), has classified the GEV as a ship.A GEV differs from an aircraft in that it cannot operate without ground effect, so its operating height is limited relative to its wingspan.
In recent years a large number of different GEV types have evolved for both civilian and military use. However, these craft are not in wide use.
History
Small numbers of experimental vehicles were built in Scandinavia just before World War II. By the 1960s, the technology started to improve, in large part due to the contributions of the Soviet Rostislav Alexeev and German Alexander Lippisch. They independently worked on GEV technology, arriving at very different solutions. Alexeev worked from his background as a ship designer whereas Lippisch worked from his own background as an aeronautical engineer. The influence of Alexeev and Lippisch is still noticeable in most GEV vehicles seen today.
The largest and fastest ekranoplan ever built, designed by the USSR during the cold war and dubbed the "Caspian Sea Monster" by US intelligence analysts.The Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau (CHDB), led by Alexeev, was the center of ground-effect craft development in Russia. The military potential for such a craft was soon recognised and Alexeev received support and financial resources from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. This led to the development of the Caspian Sea Monster, a 550 ton military ekranoplan. Before it, some manned and unmanned prototypes were built, ranging up to eight tons in displacement.
The Russian Ekranoplan program continued and led to the most successful ekranoplan so far, the 125 ton A-90 Orlyonok. A few Orlyonoks were in service with the Soviet Navy from 1979 to 1992. In 1987, the 400 ton Lun-class ekranoplan was built as a missile launcher. The second Lun was renamed to Spasatel, as a rescue vessel, but was never finished.
These craft were originally developed by the Soviet Union as very high-speed military transports, and were based mostly on the shores of the Caspian Sea and Black Sea. The largest had max take-off weight over 544 tonnes. The development of ekranoplans was supported by Dmitri Ustinov, Minister of Defence of the USSR. About 120 ekranoplans (A-90 Orlyonok class) were initially planned to enter military service in the Soviet Navy. The figure was later reduced to fewer than thirty vehicles, planned to be deployed mainly for the Black and the Baltic Soviet navies. Marshal Ustinov died in 1985, and the new Minister of Defence Marshal Sokolov effectively stopped the funding for the program. The only three operational A-90 Orlyonok ekranoplans built (with renewed hull design) and one Lun-class ekranoplan remained at a naval base near Kaspiysk.
The two major problems that the Soviet ekranoplans faced were poor longitudinal stability, and a need for reliable navigation.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, ekranoplans have been produced by the Volga Shipyard[3] in Nizhniy Novgorod.
GEV developed since the 1980s have been primarily smaller craft designed for the recreational and civilian ferry markets. Germany, Russia, and the US have provided most of the momentum with some development in Australia, China, Japan, and Taiwan. In these countries small craft up to ten seats have been designed and built. Other larger designs as ferries and heavy transports have been proposed, though none have gone on to further development.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union smaller ekranoplans for non-military use have been under development. The CHDB had already developed the eight-seat Volga-2 in 1985, and Technologies and Transport developed a smaller version by the name of Amphistar.
In Germany, Lippisch was asked to build a very fast boat for Mr. Collins from Collins Radio Company in the USA. He developed the X-112, a revolutionary design with reversed delta wing and T-tail. This design proved to be stable and efficient in ground effect and even though it was successfully tested, Collins decided to stop the project and sold the patents to a German company called Rhein Flugzeugbau (RFB) which further developed the model.
Tandem flarecraftHanno Fischer took over the works from RFB and created his own company called Fischer Flugmechanik. Their two seat Airfisch 3 and their later model to seat 6 passengers have been a successful design. This craft, the FS-8, was to be produced by a Singapore-Australian joint venture called Flightship. The company no longer exists, and the ship is out of production. An ongoing research project in collaboration with the university of Duisburg-Essen, involves the development of the Hoverwing.
Günther Jörg in Germany, who had also been working on Alexeev's first designs and was familiar with the challenges of GEV design, developed a GEV with two wings in a tandem arrangement, the Jörg-II. It was the third manned tandem airfoil boat which was developed during his consultancy period in South Africa, constructed under the name "Skimmerfoil" It was a simple and low-cost design, but has not been produced to date. Consultancy of Dipl. Ing. Günther Jörg had been founded by a fundamental knowledge of WING in Ground effect physics, and fundamental tests under different conditions and designs up from 1960. In 1984 Günther Jörg got the "PHILLIP MORRIS AWARD". In 1987 Botec Company was founded.
Current development
A number of companies have been heavily lobbying governments for development funding to pursue research and development of GEV craft exceeding 500 tonnes. The current worldwide trend in the decline in military research and development spending since the end of the Cold War era has not been conducive to funding the development of GEV craft. The perceived development risk is very high due to the untested nature of the technology and the uncertainties in the development process, the operational costs and performance outcomes. GEVs have been suggested as the solution to a number of possible operational roles, with heavy lift being the most appealing attributes. GEVs have been proposed as an alternate to the very large aircraft needed to fulfill these transportation goals. The US Air Force report "Airlift 2025" looked at using GEVs as heavy-lift platforms with the capabilities of insertion into remote locations, long range and good survivability. In the report, GEVs were cited as inappropriate for the intended use as there was a need for another method of transport from the coast to the required destination. Another study by the US Navy’s "Strategic Studies Group XVI"[citation needed] also looked at the possibility of using small GEVs as insertion and extraction craft or naval gunfire teams. Also discussed were the advantages of using WIG craft for transoceanic cargo craft, where their increased speed would reduce resupply times by at least 60%.
Civilian roles for GEVs have been heavily promoted at a number of conferences held since 1993. GEVs have been suggested as recreational craft, small to large ferries and large transport craft. A number of small companies have emerged designing and constructing GEVs for these purposes. A number of large Russian and US companies have gone as far as the preliminary design of a number of concept GEVs mainly for the transport and heavy lift market.
Theoretical research into GEVs' aerodynamics, ground effect and WIG craft stability has proceeded at a number of research centres. Performance enhancement of takeoff and landing distances as well as methods to increase sea state limitations have been analysed on prototypes and with model tests. Research continues into the determination of the most efficient platform configuration.
Besides the development of appropriate design and structural configuration, special automatic control systems and navigation systems are also being developed. These include special altimeters with high accuracy for small altitude measurements and also lesser dependence on weather conditions. After extensive research and experimentation, it has been shown that "phase radio-altimeters" are most suitable for such applications as compared to laser, isotopic or ultrasonic altimeters.
Even today R&D activities are being carried out for such vehicles in several countries, including Russia, USA, China, Germany, UK and Australia. Other future projects include the horizontal take-off and horizontal landing of Aerospace Planes (ASP) using ekranoplans.
In Russia, the reduced defense spending has forced GEV manufacturers to look for potential sales in the civil market. A number of designs have been proposed for heavy transport while a small GEV, the Amphistar has been produced in limited numbers.
In 2007, Vice premier and defense minister Sergey Ivanov announced at a meeting of the naval board: "A federal targeted program will be created according to which Nizhniy Novgorod will manufacture wing-in-ground-effect vehicles".[citation needed] The designers of the Beriev aviation scientific and technical complex responded immediately and have promised to create the new ultra-heavy Be-2500 transport amphibious airplane. The Be-2500's takeoff weight will be about 2,500 tonnes with a useful payload near 1,000 tonnes. Wing span is 125 meters, length is 115 meters and height is 29 meters. Cruising speed at altitude is 770 kilometers per hour, and in ground effect is 450 kilometers per hour. For comparison: wing span of the Boeing 747 is 64.4 meters, the airplane's length is 70.6 meters, and height is 19.4 meters.
Additionally, the civilian Arctic Trade and Transport Company (Арктическая Торгово-Транспортная Компания) produces "Aquaglide" ekranoplans, small craft capable of transporting five people including the pilot.
In China, GEVs are being researched to fulfill a number of roles in the Chinese military and commercial use. The China Academy of Science & Technology Development and China Ship Scientific Research Centre (CSSRC) started GEV project in 1980. The 702 design bureau and 708 design bureau designed a number of small prototypes. In 1995, the first commercial ferry Tianyi-1 project started. In 1998, the first Tianyi-1 prototype is tested. In 2000, the model is for commercial sale in China. Currently a larger prototype Tianxiang-2 has been completed and a 50 seater Tianxiang-5 is under development.
In the USA, a number of small companies have designed and tested a number of small ferry and recreational craft. The L-325 has gone into limited production and is for commercial sale in the U.S. Aerocon has proposed the development of a large GEV transport craft but does not appear to have gained sufficient funding for the project.
In Germany, the military interest of the 1970s has decreased. As a result the German company RFB has shifted its emphasis from GEV development. The former technical director Mr. Fischer founded a company Fischer Flugmechanik which has designed and built craft for the recreational market, their most notable development being the Airfish recreational craft. Fischer Flugmechanik, in conjunction with Techno Trans research institute, have been sponsored by the German Ministry of R&D to develop a second generation GEV. This has resulted in the development of the two-seat prototype, HW-2VT.
The Leading German company for Tandem Airfoil WIG craft is the Botec GmbH, located near Frankfurt.
In 1984 Phillip Morris Company awarded Dipl. Ing. W. Günther Jörg as the winner of the competition for Future Traffic Systems. Botec Company was founded in 1987 under the leadership of the Tandem Airfoilboat specialist Dipl. Ing. Günther W. Jörg . Dipl. Ing. Günther W. Jörg and his team have developed a large number of WIG craft for the civilian market, some of which have gone into limited production. The development of those TAF (Tandem Airfoil Flairboat)includes a number of craft in different designs and seizes. Botec GmbH has developed Tandem Airfoil Flairboats suitable for leisure boat applications and for commercial applications. Up to 2005 a number of 16 Tandem Airfoil Flairboats had been built and successfully tested according to all rules and regulations. Dipl. Ing. Günther W. Jörg and his team have provided a lot of ideas scheduled for further applications in commercial transportation sector.
In Japan, GEV technology has been analyzed in order to gain a leading position in the fast ferry design and construction market. A number of research craft have been prototyped and tested but none have proceeded onto development.
In Australia, there are a number of small enterprises, companies and individuals, the most newsworthy being the Rada and Seawing companies. These companies were established in the early 1990s with the goal of developing small commuter and recreational craft. None of the craft built by these companies progressed beyond prototype development. Neither of these companies are functioning at the present, however the principals are still active in GEV development. In 2004, A company from Australia known as Sea Eagle emerged, and work with the China CSSRC to develop the civilian range of Class B Wing Effect Craft. Currently the Craft is flying in China.
Sea Eagle
Classification
One of the problems that have delayed the development of these craft is the classification and legislation to be applied. IMO has studied the application of rules based on the International Code of Safety for High-Speed Craft (HSC code) which was developed for fast ships such as hydrofoils, hovercraft, catamarans and the like. The Russian Rules for classification and construction of small type A ekranoplans is a document upon which most GEV design is based. However in 2005, the IMO classified the WISE or GEV crafts under the category of ships.
The International Maritime Organization recognizes three classes of ground effect crafts:
Type A cannot operate out of ground effect.
Type B can jump to clear obstacles by converting kinetic energy (speed) into potential energy (height), but cannot maintain flight without the support of the ground effect.
Type C are certified as aircraft, with the ability to operate safely and efficiently in ground effect.
GEVs are not aircraft and can be certified as boats.
Advantages and disadvantages
A ground effect craft may have better fuel efficiency than an equivalent aircraft flying at low level due to the close proximity of the ground reducing lift-induced drag. There are also safety benefits in flying close to the water as an engine failure will not result in severe ditching. However, this particular configuration is difficult to fly even with computer assistance. Flying at very low altitudes, just above the sea, may be dangerous if the craft banks too far to one side while making a small radius turn.
A takeoff must be into the wind, which in the case of a water launch, means into the waves. This creates drag and reduces lift. Two main solutions to this problem have been implemented. The first was used by the Russian Ekranoplan program which placed engines in front of the wings to provide more lift. The Caspian Sea Monster had eight such engines, some of which were not used once the craft was airborne. A second approach, is to use some form of an air-cushion to raise the vehicle most of the way out of the water, making take-off easier. This is used by German Hanno Fischer in the Hoverwing (successor of the Airfisch ground effect craft), which uses some of the air from the engines to inflate a skirt under craft in the style of a sidewall hovercraft.
Wing configurations
Inverse delta
Developed by Alexander Lippisch, this wing allows stable flight in ground effect through self stabilization. This is the main Class B form of ground effect craft.
Ekranoplan wing
This was the profile designed by Rostislav Alexeyev. The wings are significantly shorter than comparative aircraft. This configuration self stabilizes pitch and altitude due to a high aft placed horizontal tail and front-aft wings.
Tandem wings
Tandem Wing can have two configurations.
A biplane-style Type-1 utilizing a shoulder mounted main lift wing and a belly-mounted sponsons similar to those on combat and transport helicopters.
A canard-style type-2 with a mid-size horizontal stabilizer near the nose of the craft directing airflow under the Main Lift Airfoil. This Type-2 tandem design is a major improvement during take-off 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.
A Tandem Wing Style with double-wing system as built in Tandem Airfoilboat constructions by Dipl. Ing. Günther Jörg. This system is self-stabilizing and leads to a very secure and comfortable Wing in Ground Effect Flight Typ A, which is very economical as well.
Russian light ekranoplan Aquaglide-2An ekranoplan (Russian: экранопла́н, French: ecran screen + plan plane ) is a vehicle resembling an aircraft but which operates solely on the principle of ground effect (in Russian эффект экрана effekt ekrana - from which the name derived). Ground effect vehicles fly above any flat surface, with the height above ground dependent upon the size of the vehicle. Ekranoplan design was conceived by revolutionary Soviet engineer Rostislav Alexeev.
Design
The important design principle is that wing lift is reduced as operating altitude of the ekranoplan is increased (see ground effect). Thus it is dynamically stable in the vertical dimension. Once moving at speed, the ekranoplan is no longer in contact with the water, and can move over ice, snow, or level land with equal ease, though flight over land would involve extreme risks unless the surface is dependably flat.
The KM, as the Caspian Sea Monster was known in the Soviet military development program, was over 100 metres (328 ft) long, weighed 540 t (531 long tons) fully loaded, and could travel over 400 kilometres per hour (249 mph), mere meters above the surface of the water. Another model was the Lun, entering service with the Black Sea Fleet in 1987; the Lun-class vehicles had a top speed of 297 knots (550 km/h) (341 mph) flying in ground effect and 550 knots at altitude. The Lun ekranoplan had potentially a lifting power of 1,000 tonnes (984 long tons).
Boeing Pelican
The Boeing Pelican ULTRA (Ultra Large Transport Aircraft) is a proposed ground effect fixed-wing aircraft under study by Boeing Phantom Works.
Development
Intended as a large-capacity transport craft for military or civilian use, it would have a wingspan of 500 feet (150 m), a cargo capacity of 1,400 tons (1,300 metric tonnes), and a range of about 10,000 nautical miles (18,000 km). Powered by four turboprop engines, its main mode would be to fly 20-50 ft (6-15 m) over water, though it would also be capable of overland flight at an altitude as high as 20,000 ft (6,100 m) albeit with a decreased range of about 6,500 nautical miles (12,000 km). It would operate from conventional runways, with its weight distributed over 38 fuselage-mounted landing gears with 76 wheels. There has not been any further information about this concept since 2002.
Specifications
General characteristics
Length: 400 ft (122 m)
Wingspan: 500 ft (152 m)
Height: 18.3 ft (fuselage bay interior) (6 m)
Wing area: > 1 acre (>4,000 square meters[1])
Useful load: 2,800,000 lb (1,400 tons) (1,272,727 kg (1,273 metric tonnes))
Powerplant: × , () each
Performance
Cruise speed: 240 kts in ground effect (445 km/h)
Lun-class ekranoplan
The Lun-class (Russian: "Hen Harrier") (NATO reporting name: "Utka"; Russian: "Duck") ekranoplan Ground effect vehicle was an extremely unusual aircraft designed by Rostislav Evgenievich Alexeev and used by the Soviet & Russian navies from 1987 to sometime in the late '90s. Ground effect aircraft use the extra lift of their large wings when in proximity to the surface (about one to four meters). It is also interesting to note that this aircraft is one of the largest ever built, with a length of 73m, rivaling that of the Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" and many modern jumbo jets.
Lun EkranoplanThe sole vessel of her class, MD-160 entered service with the Black Sea Fleet in 1987. Eight Kuznetsov NK-87 turbojets were mounted on forward-located canards, each delivering 127.4 kN (28,600 lbf) of thrust. MD-160 had a flying boat-like hull with a large deflecting plate at the bottom of the hull to provide a "step" for takeoff.
The aircraft was equipped for Anti-Surface Warfare P-270 Moskit. It was therefore fitted with six missile launchers, mounted in pairs on the dorsal surface of the fuselage, and advanced tracking systems mounted in the nose and tail. A development of the Lun was planned for use as a mobile field hospital, one which could be rapidly deployed to any ocean or coastal location. Work was begun on this model, the Spasatel, but budget cutbacks mean that it has never been completed.
Other interesting websites about ekranoplan : se-technology
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The Russian mysterious
Ekranoplanes (1)
The Russian mysterious
Ekranoplanes (2)
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