WIGs. Very original and peculiar machines with great potential, as they say now. The brainchild of the Minister of Defense Marshal Dmitry Ustinov, who greatly helped the appearance of these machines in general and the "Caspian Monster" in particular.
The history (unfortunately) of the USSR also includes the first serial landing ekranoplan "Eaglet", and the first strike "Lun" with an anti-ship missile "Moskit" on board. The last "Eaglet" was decommissioned in 2007, the "Lun" seems to be mothballed, and there are no reasons for reopening and any work on it.
The death of Ustinov and the collapse of the Soviet Union put an end to the whole idea of ekranoplanes. Today, conversations about this sometimes come, the law enforcement agencies show interest, but all this will remain at the level of chatter for many reasons.
In the US, they also "showed interest." So what?
And really, what is overseas? Didn't you want to do the same thing, only cooler?
They wanted to. Not like ours, but they approached the idea very seriously. The most important thing is that there was a person in the United States who was no less gifted than our Rostislav Alekseev, the creator of Soviet ekranoplanes. And you, dear readers, fans of everything flying in particular, this person should know perfectly well.
Alexander Martin Lippisch.
Yes, the same, the creator of the DFS-194 airframe, from which, when processed with a hammer and file, the Me.163 turned out. That is, a person who knows how to work with his head is indisputable.
Lippisch could, in principle, compete with Alekseev. It could well, especially since the delta wing, jet engines - this is what Lippisch really knew how.
Moreover, the very idea of an ekranoplan was not alien to Lippish. He worked in this direction, since in the USA he had all the conditions for this. And when we began work on the KM apparatus ("Model Ship", not "Caspian Monster"), and this happened at the very beginning of the 60s, Lippish worked absolutely in parallel with Alekseev. And to be honest, he got no less outlandish devices.
It's still an airplane. "Aerodyne". Wingless plane. But you understand that Lippisch was a very extraordinary designer.
But if the first Soviet ekranolet SM-1 made its first flight on July 22, 1961, and KM flew in 1966, then Lippisch was not so bad. In 1963, the first American device Collins X-112, designed by a German engineer, also began to fly pretty well.
The difference in schools and designs was significant. Alekseev made machines with a short and straight wing, Lippish (naturally) with a delta wing swept back. Alekseev's machines were somewhat more profitable, because they easily allowed scaling, that is, creating a multiple model of any size.
Lippisch had to re-calculate everything every time, but his machines were distinguished by ease of control, great stability and maneuverability. For Alekseev's cars, the pilots had to be retrained, and retrained for quite a long time. And the creator himself was generally considered the best pilot of Soviet ekranoplanes.
It cannot be said that Lippisch's cars did not interest anyone in the United States. The military watched with pleasure the demonstration flights of all ekranoplanes of the German, and the Kh-112, and the Kh-113, and the RFB X-114. Moreover, intelligence reported that the Russians were also coming up with something like that.
So in the United States, too, they did not doze and, as a result, Lippisch was put in charge of the project of a large ekranoplan. And it happened two years before the first flight of the CM.
The military was interested in this device. They, however, did not know yet how to apply it. But NASA knew and also began to ask the price of the ekranoplan. Well, everything was clear with the space agency, they were interested in transport that could deliver especially valuable parts to the cosmodrome and as a search and rescue vehicle.
Here you need to know that the first capsules with astronauts did not land, but splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, so the faster the response of the search engines, the more rosy the prospect for astronauts became.
So the interest was …
However, having interest is not at all a prospect. Any of us can take an interest in, say, a new Mercedes model. But God forbid that one in a thousand could buy. You need to understand why you need a car of this class in general, and whether the budget will pull in particular.
That's about the same thing happened with the Americans.
They had an interest, they had money (as usual), but they did not understand why they needed these complex and expensive devices. And the US had a navy. More precisely, several fleets, which, in the opinion of the command, are capable of solving all the issues of the day with the help of aircraft carriers, battleships and smaller ships.
It was quite logical to itself. The fleets could be located in any area of the oceans and there to carry out what was entrusted to them. Without the use of ekranoplanes, especially since there were no tasks for them.
The USSR had a headache of a completely different nature, although it was called in exactly the same way: the US Navy. And our admirals were loaded with the task of neutralizing this fleet. And there was nothing to neutralize.
And here the variant with an ekranoplane seemed quite normal, which had a good camouflage, moving quite low above the water, and just excellent speed and flight range.
Yes, it was a very sophisticated technique, not in vain from the first flights in the 60s to the appearance of sane samples ready for mass production as many as 20 years have passed.
Comparable with the work of Korolev.
But there was nowhere to go, and with the help of ekranoplanes, the Soviet command tried to compensate for the lack of normal ships.
And in the USA there were no such problems, they had enough ships. Therefore, a shock ekranoplan capable of quickly flying up to … Now, where was it supposed to fly? To the aircraft carrier strike group of the Soviet Navy? So they still had to be created, these groups. To our shores? Well, too, so-so pleasure.
The only thing American desires were enough for was a patrol ekranolet with rocket and artillery weapons, a hangar with an anti-submarine helicopter (!), Bomb throwers … In fact, just a flying corvette of the near zone.
When the USA calculated how much such an ekranoplan would be in dollars, they realized that building several corvettes is both easier and more reliable for the same money.
Of course, such a flying patrol corvette could control a larger sector of US coastal waters than normal, but price played a major role here.
And there was another project that could easily surpass the "Lunya" with its anti-ship missile "Mosquito".
The well-known firm "McDonnell-Douglas" proposed a project not just for an ekranoplan, but for a carrier of ballistic missiles!
The Douglases decided to create a colossus that would frighten even the Moon in size. And as weapons, besides all sorts of little things like anti-aircraft missile systems, four Trident SLBM launchers would be placed in the hold of this monster.
The idea was tempting, but the adherents of the conventional method of delivering missiles using a submarine still won.
And when the price was announced … In general, it turned out a little expensive.
But these days, the idea is not fading away. Yes, in modern Russia, if they say about ekranoplans, then so … In the plans for the day after the day after tomorrow. Well, or when the next time you need a reason to threaten. Say, we can, if we want. And then there will be a cover for everyone.
And in the States, just recently, they returned to the topic. But not in terms of a striking apparatus, but as a means of rapid delivery of military contingents and equipment with equipment to anywhere in the world. The role of the "World Peacemaker" seems to be an obligation.
Considering how much time the US Army and Navy spend on logistics, wandering their soldiers around the world, it is no wonder that we would like everything to be more operational than the same "Desert Storm" and "Desert Fox".
And what, it would be interesting to load a battalion of marines with infantry fighting vehicles and tanks into an ekranoplan instead of a landing ship and, after 12 hours of summer, land somewhere in the Persian Gulf, for example …
Boeing immediately flew in with its Pelican ULTRA (Ultra Large TRansport Aircraft) project.
The giant from the aerospace concern promised to transport 1,200 tons of cargo over a range of 18 thousand kilometers. The project, of course, took into account the developments of "Douglas". The Pentagon seemed to support the idea, but … the naval ones refused, on which the headache for the maintenance and servicing of this whopper would lay. As a result, the project “didn’t play”.
Plus, you should pay attention to the fact that ekranoplanes can be used not in any weather and not in any excitement. It is not for nothing that we have seen them mainly in the Caspian Sea, in the Caspian Sea, which is calm by world standards.
In the United States, it would be more difficult to use such machines, since the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are not our seas. Yes, in the Black, Caspian, Baltic Seas, closed waters, it would be much easier and safer to use ekranoplanes than in the ocean, and even during the bad weather season.
So the Americans were able to use ekranoplanes. It is a fact. Three things stopped them: huge cost, indistinctness in terms of use and, possibly, cancer, which sentenced Lippisch in 1976. It is likely that if the talented German had lived longer, the result could have been different.
In fact, the ekranoplan is possibly an instrument of the future. Far, because today it is simply not profitable for the United States or Russia to build such machines.
In the Soviet Union, they turned to the idea because the country was not able to build a fleet that could withstand the American one. And the very application of the same "Lunya" with its "Mosquitoes" against the connection of ships looked so-so … Like the Japanese kamikaze.
Yes, a fast and poorly visible for radars ekranoplan, of course, could come up to the launch distance of the anti-ship missile system. At 90-100 km. And even most likely, it would have fired missiles. Then, forgive me, only God knows whether they would have let him go or not. Most likely not, and this colossus would have been simply shot by planes easily and naturally.
So, ekranoplans were in the USSR, because in that country they could build them and imagined how to use them profitably. In the United States, they could also create something like this, but there was no certainty in the application.
Another question is that if tomorrow they suddenly decide in the States that they need such an apparatus, there is a certain certainty that they will build ekranoplanes. As usual, regardless of financial losses.
Will we be able to - that's the question …
