Ekranoplanes occupy a special place in the collective unconscious of many residents of the former USSR. Otherwise, how to understand the paradoxical love of our fellow citizens for these fantastic constructions - it is impossible to explain this by any arguments of reason. The ekranoplanes did not set speed records and did not spin "barrels" and "dead loops" in the sky. Almost no one saw them live. The only thing that a simple man in the street knows is the incredibly beautiful sight of a half-ship-half-plane flying over the water itself. This is what a real Imperial Navy should look like! Powerful, Swift, Great!
There are fabulous legends about ekranoplanes - an amazing vehicle has the speed of an aircraft and the payload of a ship. Walking on the border of two environments, the ekranoplan is invisible on radar screens, it can go out onto flat areas of land and is capable of transferring an entire amphibious battalion overseas in a matter of hours. Carrying capacity, efficiency, speed!
The paradox is that nowhere in the world ekranoplans are used …
Cold shower
The fundamental laws of nature cannot be deceived. The idea of an ekranoplan directly violates one of the important principles of aviation: the low-altitude flight profile is not optimal from the point of view of fuel efficiency. The plane flies rapidly through the thin air at the edge of the stratosphere. An ekranoplan has to break through dense layers of air near the surface of the Earth.
Structural elements of the ekranoplan enter into a tough contradiction: the plane, according to all aviation rules, must be light, and the ship, on the contrary, must be heavy and durable in order to take on board hundreds of tons of cargo and withstand the impact of the water element. A cool hybrid of a ship and an airplane, in practice, turned out to be a bad airplane and a bad ship.
In the early 60s, Rostislav Alekseev, a talented shipbuilder, a recognized expert in the field of hydrodynamics, creator of the world's best river hydrofoils, became interested in the fantastic idea of an airplane ship. For fifteen years he worked on solving the puzzle, trying to combine the conflicting requirements of aviation and shipbuilding in the design of the ekranoplan. In vain. Every time the tests of ekranoplanes plunged the military into despondency.
There was something to think about: the giant ekranoplan constantly lacked thrust to overcome the monstrous air resistance. Coupled with the monstrous appearance of the airplane ship, ineffective from an aerodynamic point of view, this led to a funny result. Six engines. Eight. Finally, ten RD-7 jet engines from the Tu-22 long-range supersonic bomber.
The ekranoplan KM needed ten engines! The plane took two. Well, while the maximum take-off weight of the CM is 5 times more. Five times more thrust, five times more takeoff weight - but where are the savings that the proponents of ekranoplanes talk about so much? And there is no savings - despite the increase in lift due to the ground effect, all reserves "gobbled up" air resistance. Promises to turn off some of the engines in flight do not stand up to criticism - in just 10 minutes of operation in takeoff mode, ten jet engines burned thirty tons of fuel!
In fact, the situation is much worse: the bomber has 2 times higher cruising speed, and its maximum speed of 1600 km / h is generally unattainable for ekranoplanes. The flight range of the KM ekranoplan did not exceed 1500 km. For the Tu-22, this figure was 4500 - 5500 km, depending on the modification.
Comparison of a long-range bomber and a heavy ekranoplan is not entirely correct - despite some general principles and the same power plants, these are two completely different types of equipment, different in size and tasks. Much more revealing is the comparison of ekranoplanes KM and "Lun" (eight-engine miracle, further development of KM) with the heavy transport aircraft An-124 "Ruslan".
Against the background of "Ruslan" both brainchildren of the Alekseev Design Bureau seem like flying jokes - the An-124 does both of them in terms of carrying capacity, speed, flight range, fuel efficiency and operational capabilities. For pilots, the relief under the wing of the aircraft does not matter: mountains, taiga, ocean … There is a contract - and the Ruslan flies from Moscow to Novosibirsk: a distance of 3200 km, on board 150 tons of cargo. The Ruslan's cruising speed is 800 km / h.
Attempts to write off the obvious critical problems of ekranoplanes on the lack of time and effort of the designer Alekseev have no real grounds - by the time work began on this topic, Rostislav Alekseev had a huge experience behind him associated with the design of high-speed ships, and in the design of his ekranoplanes they were used well proven technical solutions from shipbuilding and aviation. And nevertheless … for 15 years of research, the Alekseev Design Bureau has not been able to create an effective model of an ekranoplan.
The eagle does not catch flies
The bright "star" in the Alekseev ekranoplane collection is the A-90 Orlyonok transport and landing ekranoplane. The ekranoplan is able to take on board up to a hundred marines or two armored personnel carriers, and deliver them to a distance of 1500 km at a speed of 350 km / h. Unlike its brethren, the Eaglet is deprived of their heavyweight appearance with ten engines - on the contrary, it is a very beautiful, swift apparatus with an aluminum fuselage and a single engine at the top of the tail keel. There is even a defensive machine-gun mount and retractable landing gear for landing on conventional airfields. Moreover, the "Eaglet" is not a simple ekranoplan - it is capable of breaking away from the screen and soaring up to a height of 3000 m, like an ordinary plane. A wonderful, balanced vehicle, what doubts can there be?
Indeed, at first glance, the "Orlyonok" is equipped with only one engine - the NK-12 turboprop, the same motors are on the Tu-95 intercontinental bomber. But let's pay attention to the nose of the fuselage, there are two "surprises" in it - two NK-8 turbojet engines taken from the passenger Tu-154. Not bad for a modest ekranoplan …
Again the excuse is that the bow thrusters are only used for takeoff. Alas, this is not so - the Orlyonok's engines have swiveling nozzles that allow directing the jet stream over the wing! Why is this done? That's right, at maximum load and high flight speed, the thrust of the tail engine is not enough - you have to turn on the nose ones. The most economical vehicle you didn't know?
Built in 1972, the Eaglet was offered as a special vehicle for the Navy, as a kind of alternative to military transport aviation. At that time, the main transport aircraft in the Soviet Union was the An-12, which had been in serial production since 1959. The old proven "Antonov" did not leave a single chance for the "Orlyonok" - with the same payload (20 tons), the An-12 had half the take-off weight (of course, it doesn't need anchors and additional tons of fuel). The cruising speed of "Antonov", as expected, was significantly higher than that of the ekranoplan - 670 km / h, and the flight range with maximum load reached 3600 km.
But the An-12 has four engines! - fans of ekranoplanes will happily remind you. But it would be better if they did not remember it …
"Antonov" is equipped with AI-20 turboprop engines (2600 hp in normal mode, 4250 hp in takeoff mode). Surprisingly, the total power of all four engines of the An-12 is equal to the single cruising engine of the ekranoplan.
It is not recommended to compare the ekranoplan with more modern machines. The mighty An-22 Antey lifts 60 tons of payload and, as usual, surpasses Orlyonok many times in speed, range and fuel efficiency.
It is clear that Eaglet was a stillborn project. After several years of ordeals with this very expensive and useless "toy", in 1976 Rostislav Alekseev was dismissed by the order of the Minister of the Shipbuilding Industry. The ekranoplanes and their creator have come to their natural end.
How to distinguish black from white? With your eyes
Sometimes the failures of Rostislav Alekseev are associated with the evil intrigues of the Minister of the shipbuilding industry B. E. Butoma. Perhaps they really did have a personal dislike for each other, although any of us would be outraged if he was offered to buy a ticket at a double rate and fly twice as slow. And this is exactly what the dear Rostislav Evgenievich suggested.
"How dare you reproach such a deserved person!" - an indignant reader will ask me. Alas, I only voiced the current state of affairs, the decision for all of us has long been made by smart people from the ministries and departments of the Soviet Union. The ekranoplanes turned out to be of no use to anyone, a dead-end branch of technology.
The attempt to blame the failure on the short-sightedness and inertia of the Soviet leadership looks clearly unfounded. M. L. Mil and N. I. For some reason, Kamov were able to convince the country's leadership of the usefulness of their developments and built thousands of their wonderful helicopters. The helicopter, despite its low speed and fuel inefficiency, has a number of unique qualities, including:
- vertical take-off and landing, - unsurpassed maneuverability, the ability to hover in one place, - transportation of bulky goods on an external sling.
Unfortunately, supporters of ekranoplanes could not formulate a single intelligible argument to justify the construction of these vehicles.
The mythical efficiency of ekranoplanes has not been confirmed in practice - a winged ship consumes even more fuel than an aircraft of the same size. I'm not even talking about the cost of the miracle ship itself and its maintenance - only a set of 10 jet engines for the "Caspian Monster" will cost a pretty penny.
The advantage of an ekranoplan is often called its invisibility to enemy radars. Hmm … firstly, an early warning aircraft can see such large surface targets perfectly at a distance of 400 km (the border of the radio horizon). Secondly, any aircraft, if necessary, can fly at low altitude. So, excuse me, comrades, by.
The third argument is that the ekranoplane does not need an airfield with a long runway. Yes, this is the first serious argument. However, in view of all the above disadvantages, this only advantage does not yet provide sufficient grounds for the construction of ekranoplanes. In addition, the ekranoplan is not as disinterested as it is presented - a dry dock with all the infrastructure is needed to maintain it.
Other positive aspects of the miracle ship? For example, a flying ekranoplan is not afraid of sea mines. So what, planes don't care about them at all.
Sometimes there are proposals to use ekranoplanes as sea rescuers. Allegedly, a miracle ship is capable of reaching the crash site on the high seas in a matter of hours and taking on board a hundred people. The proposal is useless for one reason - flying at high speed, at an altitude of only 5 meters, the ekranoplan simply will not be able to detect the victims.
The best marine rescue system has been known for a long time - two heavy helicopters (a search and rescue helicopter and a tanker). Flying at an altitude of several hundred meters, helicopters survey tens of square kilometers of the sea surface per hour, while they are not much inferior to an ekranoplane in speed and reaction speed.
An interesting attempt to use ekranoplanes for the landing of amphibious assault - ekranoplan lovers insist on the speed of delivery of marines to enemy shores. The proposal is bad - the landing party cannot be landed on an unprepared shore, otherwise everything will turn into a bloody mess. Bombers should be the first to appear over enemy territory and dig everything up and down there. In general, in our time, major operations are being prepared for many months before the invasion - there is enough time to transport thousands of tanks on ships across half the world. And most importantly, the range of ekranoplanes is too small, only 1500 km is not enough to cross the Baltic.
Comparison of an ekranoplan with a sea vessel does not make sense - built using aviation technologies, it does not at all look like a ship. Sea transport has no equal in terms of carrying capacity and cost of transportation - the ekranoplan has lost all these qualities. Its carrying capacity corresponds to a conventional transport aircraft, and the cost of cargo delivery exceeds (!) The indicators of transport aviation.
The conclusion sounds simple: there was no application for the ekranoplan. All niches are occupied by other vehicles:
- Do you need to deliver 10 thousand tons of cargo across the ocean? Sea transport is always available. Despite its seeming "slow speed", the most common dry cargo ship or ro-ro ship crosses half of the Earth in 50 days. The secret is simple - the ship, like the train, does not care about the weather - at any time of the year, day or night, in thunderstorms and storms, without refueling and stopping, it stubbornly crawls towards its target at a speed of 20 knots (about 40 km / h). The quieter you go, the further you'll get. It's about sailors.
- Do you urgently need to deliver 20 … 30 … 100 tons of cargo to another continent? Transport aviation is always available. The plane will take the cargo on board and arrive at the point in 10 hours. Is there an earthquake, an airfield destroyed? It doesn't matter - the IL-76 EMERCOM will sit on any more or less level ground.
- Do you need to deliver an oil rig to the Far North? The helicopter will help - it will gently pick up the load with a rope and just as carefully lower it to the right place.
Perhaps the reason for the popularity of ekranoplanes is that nowhere in the world, except for the USSR, such things were not built. It's strange … a lot of unique things were created in the Soviet Union - lunar rovers, orbital stations, deep-sea titanium submarines, air heavyweights An-124 Ruslan and An-225 Dream, but according to some obscure laws of psychology, in human memory they are most vividly preserved memories of clumsy steel birds soaring over the water surface. Perhaps the ekranoplan is unwittingly associated with an unrealizable dream of a wonderful communist future.
