U.S. Wing-in-Ground (WIG) studies

Hi,

Lockheed Martin sea-based Wing-in-Ground effect (WIG) transport aircraft for transporting 250,000 lb. (113, 397 kg) of cargo over 6,000 miles at 400 to 450 knots (517.8 miles per hr.) (courtesy of Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems).
http://www.aee.odu.edu/img/aerosystems/jpg/11_wing_in_ground_effect.jpg

That looks way small for a 250,000 lbs payload...
Even with GE-90s, you would still need more than two engines.
From the look of the cockpit window, this is a much smaller vehicle. My two cents.

Hi,

the WIG aircraft and air-cushion transport concept.

Boeing pelican

http://www.aereimilitari.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=9418

there is dimesions for the pelican here

JJC said:

there is dimesions for the pelican here

Click to expand...

And here big old thread on Pelican here. Please use search before new post.

Hi,

the Bell Air cushion WIG aircraft.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19790017874_1979017874.pdf

Hi,

an old WIG aircraft.

http://books.google.com.eg/books?id=hAEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA70&dq=delta-wing+popular&lr=&cd=5#v=onepage&q&f=true

Artist rendering of a McDonnell-Douglas WIG in USAF colors (note SAC shield) firing a cruise missile from its retractable launch tubes. Probably a good way to upset the Navy.

This WIG looks like it can also fly at altitude, like a Bartini VVA-14. (Original painting by Mike Machat for McDonnell Douglas Corporation. Courtesy Mike Machat)

Sorry for ignorant question but why does the USAF have not implemented transport WIG as a mean to storm beaches, or cruise missiles arsenal planes? For the limited knowledge I have, I can see these platforms as extremely flexible, so is it because that there are flaws in these concepts that I'm unaware of or is it just because of military branches' traditions that do not want other branches to invade their turf?

donnage99 said:

Sorry for ignorant question but why does the USAF have not implemented transport WIG as a mean to storm beaches, or cruise missiles arsenal planes? For the limited knowledge I have, I can see these platforms as extremely flexible, so is it because that there are flaws in these concepts that I'm unaware of or is it just because of military branches' traditions that do not want other branches to invade their turf?

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Nothing "ignorant" about the question Donnage

Of the "listed" tasks the ONLY one that the USAF would be interested in would be the Cruise-Missile Arsenal plane, similar to the one pictured in the post above yours. Of course the "problem" with that idea is the Air Force doesn't have a lot of experiance with sea-based duties and frankly from a purely service orientated view it would make more sense to have something like a 747 based airborne arsenal aircraft rather than a WIG based on simiply due to how much easier that would be to intergrate into the current infrastructure.
The 'rest' of those jobs are Navy duties and would be of much more interest to them than the USAF. Mostly it is because (as you note) branches of the military don't like to have 'over-lap' in duties, partially because of traditional seperations of duties but mostly having to do with funding. If, say, the Air Force got a whole bunch of WIG transports that were capable of going from the East Coast of the United States to a beach landing on the Coast of Africa then there would be a LOT of political pressure on the Navy to have their Marine transport and support infrastructure and equipment cut back or eliminated. There might even be suggestions that the Marines be put under the Air Force control! (The horror! The Marines would of course commit mass suicide at the mere thought of such an event )

That's actually one reason why the Pelican transport recieved such a cool welcome and so little support for a larger test program. It wasn't being pitched a capability for the Navy, but as a "Super-Heavy" Air Force transport that could not ONLY land troops and equipment on the beach but could fly out-of-ground-effect to do the same at some in-land point! The Air Force didn't/doesn't want to directly interface with operations like beach landings since that is far out of our expertise range, at the same time the Navy and Marines didn't want to have funding for their landing operations and equipment budget going to the Air Force to support a heavy duty transport they may or may not be able to use as readily as what they were already using. About the ONLY branch that didn't have an 'issue' with the basic idea of the Pelican was the Army which pretty much wanted the Air Force to buy them so they could make plans on being able to move a full company of M-1A-2 heavy tanks anywhere in the world on short notice.

Randy

Sorry for ignorant question but why does the USAF have not implemented transport WIG as a mean to storm beaches,

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...Because the Air Farce wouldn't be the branch to develop and implement an aircraft for such a purpose. The Navy and Marine Corps would be the most likely branch to consider using such a vehicle, with the Aaaarmy coming in second and most likely using whatever the Navy put into service. That being said, the closest thing the US armed services came to implementing anything WIG was the Sea Spectre, a remarkable cross-breeding between an F-117 and a large PT Boat whose stealthy nature of mission wound up being its reason for failure, as the Navy had extreme difficulties getting any of its flag officers to assume command voluntarily; for some whackjob reason, they felt using such stealth technology combined with stand-off-and-shoot(*) in high seas combat was "cowardly" and "dishonorable". Personally, I'd have given my remaining good leg for the honor of commanding such a vessel. And my left nut for the privilege to actually use its might in combat against our enemies.

(*) If being able to strike from a distance without detection was a sin, try telling that to battlecruisers with 16" guns, painted in camouflage.

Well, the Navy has the original stealth platform - submarines.

And we had a WIG test program planned in the early '90s. Ran short of money...

OM said:

Sorry for ignorant question but why does the USAF have not implemented transport WIG as a mean to storm beaches,

Click to expand...

...Because the Air Farce wouldn't be the branch to develop and implement an aircraft for such a purpose. The Navy and Marine Corps would be the most likely branch to consider using such a vehicle, with the Aaaarmy coming in second and most likely using whatever the Navy put into service. That being said, the closest thing the US armed services came to implementing anything WIG was the Sea Spectre, a remarkable cross-breeding between an F-117 and a large PT Boat whose stealthy nature of mission wound up being its reason for failure, as the Navy had extreme difficulties getting any of its flag officers to assume command voluntarily; for some whackjob reason, they felt using such stealth technology combined with stand-off-and-shoot(*) in high seas combat was "cowardly" and "dishonorable". Personally, I'd have given my remaining good leg for the honor of commanding such a vessel. And my left nut for the privilege to actually use its might in combat against our enemies.

(*) If being able to strike from a distance without detection was a sin, try telling that to battlecruisers with 16" guns, painted in camouflage.

Click to expand...

I'm confused? Are you referring to the Navy's MKIII Sea Spectre Patrol Boat? IINM, these had a fairly long service life(mid 70's to late 90's) but were not particularly stealthy so I don't understand the F-117 reference?

V8Interceptor said:

OM said:

Sorry for ignorant question but why does the USAF have not implemented transport WIG as a mean to storm beaches,

Click to expand...

...Because the Air Farce wouldn't be the branch to develop and implement an aircraft for such a purpose. The Navy and Marine Corps would be the most likely branch to consider using such a vehicle, with the Aaaarmy coming in second and most likely using whatever the Navy put into service. That being said, the closest thing the US armed services came to implementing anything WIG was the Sea Spectre, a remarkable cross-breeding between an F-117 and a large PT Boat whose stealthy nature of mission wound up being its reason for failure, as the Navy had extreme difficulties getting any of its flag officers to assume command voluntarily; for some whackjob reason, they felt using such stealth technology combined with stand-off-and-shoot(*) in high seas combat was "cowardly" and "dishonorable". Personally, I'd have given my remaining good leg for the honor of commanding such a vessel. And my left nut for the privilege to actually use its might in combat against our enemies.

(*) If being able to strike from a distance without detection was a sin, try telling that to battlecruisers with 16" guns, painted in camouflage.

Click to expand...

I'm confused? Are you referring to the Navy's MKIII Sea Spectre Patrol Boat? IINM, these had a fairly long service life(mid 70's to late 90's) but were not particularly stealthy so I don't understand the F-117 reference?

Click to expand...

I think he was meaning the "Sea Shadow" no the spectre...

Randy

circle-5 said:

Artist rendering of a McDonnell-Douglas WIG in USAF colors (note SAC shield) firing a cruise missile from its retractable launch tubes. Probably a good way to upset the Navy.

This WIG looks like it can also fly at altitude, like a Bartini VVA-14. (Original painting by Mike Machat for McDonnell Douglas Corporation. Courtesy Mike Machat)

Click to expand...

Do you have a date for this concept circle-5?

RanulfC said:

V8Interceptor said:

OM said:

Sorry for ignorant question but why does the USAF have not implemented transport WIG as a mean to storm beaches,

Click to expand...

...Because the Air Farce wouldn't be the branch to develop and implement an aircraft for such a purpose. The Navy and Marine Corps would be the most likely branch to consider using such a vehicle, with the Aaaarmy coming in second and most likely using whatever the Navy put into service. That being said, the closest thing the US armed services came to implementing anything WIG was the Sea Spectre, a remarkable cross-breeding between an F-117 and a large PT Boat whose stealthy nature of mission wound up being its reason for failure, as the Navy had extreme difficulties getting any of its flag officers to assume command voluntarily; for some whackjob reason, they felt using such stealth technology combined with stand-off-and-shoot(*) in high seas combat was "cowardly" and "dishonorable". Personally, I'd have given my remaining good leg for the honor of commanding such a vessel. And my left nut for the privilege to actually use its might in combat against our enemies.

(*) If being able to strike from a distance without detection was a sin, try telling that to battlecruisers with 16" guns, painted in camouflage.

Click to expand...

I'm confused? Are you referring to the Navy's MKIII Sea Spectre Patrol Boat? IINM, these had a fairly long service life(mid 70's to late 90's) but were not particularly stealthy so I don't understand the F-117 reference?

Click to expand...

I think he was meaning the "Sea Shadow" no the spectre...

Randy

Click to expand...

Ah, that makes a little more sense, though Sea Shadow is only a technology demonstrator incapable of deploying weapons(and of course, not a WIG)...

V8Interceptor said:

Ah, that makes a little more sense, though Sea Shadow is only a technology demonstrator incapable of deploying weapons(and of course, not a WIG)...

Click to expand...

Well... it IS kind of "WIG-ish" looking I suppose

Randy

A WIG concept under study by the NASA in 1975

Source: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19760005976_1976005976.pdf

Hi

If you follow the link given below you will find a 3 volume report about wingship investigation in the U.S. They are quite large and cover every aspect: missions, aerodynamics, propulsion and so on.

Also they report (in volume 3) short descriptions of proposals for large WIGs by Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas, Northrop and Aerocon (with technical data and line drawings).


best
F.T.

ford_tempo said:

Hi

If you follow the link given below you will find a 3 volume report about wingship investigation in the U.S. They are quite large and cover every aspect: missions, aerodynamics, propulsion and so on.

Also they report (in volume 3) short descriptions of proposals for large WIGs by Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas, Northrop and Aerocon (with technical data and line drawings).

http://www.dtic.mil/srch/search?searchview=d4&c=t3&changequery=1&template=%2Fdtic%2Fsearch%2Ftr%2Fresults-template-tr.html&s=1&fql=y&n=30&sort=-RD&xml=1&q=wingship+investigation&Submit=Search&pdfitems=&enableLemmatization=YES

best
F.T.

Click to expand...

We can display them here.

hesham said:

We can display them here.

Click to expand...

OR... we can try to clean them up a bit to make them a little more user friendly... Don't you think it's a lot better this way?

More of the Aerocon Wingship design:

From TomS reference;

the McDonnell Douglas WIG aircraft of 1979.

http://books.google.com.eg/books?id=EQRfhBdrYGIC&lpg=PA304&ots=Rx-d_3r_zs&dq=over+the+wing+engines+to+give+a+low+wing+platform+while+achieving+a+low+cargo+deck&pg=PA304&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Stargazer2006 said:

More of the Aerocon Wingship design:

Click to expand...

Hi,


http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA294981&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

Nice... but if it's the Aerocon design, why does the blueprint say "Northrop"?!?

As I suspected, this is not the Aerocon proposal, but a USAF proposal based on a Northrop design (ARPA Wingship Program Parametric Study - Preliminary Results -
Northrop Jul. 1993):

The two WIG concepts evaluated in this study are the DASH-1.6, 5000-ton Wingship created by Aerocon Incorporated, and a 3000-ton variant developed by the Air Force ASC/XREDT of a Northrop 800-ton concept. Details on these two concepts, as provided by their developers (References 2 and 3), are presented below.

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The inboard profile drawing, shown earlier in Figure 2.1-4, for the Northrop 800-ton WIG depicts a nose visor door and rear port side doors for loading and unloading. No dimensions are given for these doors. It is assumed that the nose visor door will open completely to provide straight-in loading/unloading access to the full 28.4 ft wide and total 33+ ft high (14 ft upper, 19 ft lower, plus upper floor thickness) cargo compartment. The two rear loading doors appear to give full height access; the total width of the two doors appears to be about 60-percent greater than the height.
No ramps or other equipment are shown in the drawings for loading and unloading. Integral ramps, similar to those on the Aerocon concept, could be developed as a future design refinement.

Click to expand...

Old WIG topic split.

Please use this new topic for WIG studies from Lockheed, Northrop, Aerocon, Bell, and so forth (NOT the Boeing Pelican, which already has its own topic).

There will be separate topics for Russian WIGs and small-size, general aviation type WIGs.

The McDonnell Dougals WIG;


http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19760021137_1976021137.pdf

Hi,


here is many Ekranoplanes designs for small designers;


http://vadimvswar.narod.ru/ALL_OUT/TiVOut0809/EkrplUSA/EkrplUSA001.htm

And many small companies;


one of them is the MIT,which its project was based on Boeing Model 747.

hesham said:

one of them is the MIT,which its project was based on Boeing Model 747.

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In what manner? I can't see an ounce of commonality between this weird design and a 747!

Also for a big companies;

Hi,


in 1961,the Office of Naval Operations Staff of the US. Navy had decided to make a
competition for design of Large Military Transport Amphibian aircraft,the competition
was attended by several US companies,but the winner was VRC Colombia.

Stargazer2006 said:

hesham said:

one of them is the MIT,which its project was based on Boeing Model 747.

Click to expand...

In what manner? I can't see an ounce of commonality between this weird design and a 747!

Click to expand...

Before objection,please see the Translation;

Specialists MIT long worked to create the winged, which is a hybrid aircraft and ocean-going vessel.Finally, in 1995, they announced their project improved WIG W1GM.WIG, received the name «Fastship» (speed ship), be equipped jet engines on aircraft «Boeing-747".W1GM combined the possibility of obtaining a high flight speed and aerodynamic efficiency when driving in the zone of influence of ground effect, and outside of it.At higher altitudes the winged flight was designed to achieve transonic speeds.Power plant included turbojets general thrust 203 tons.

The only thing I learn from this very approximate piece of English is that they used 747 engines.

Hardly makes it a Boeing 747 variant, does it?

Also you misread the General Dynamics project as having a "Project D" designation... It doesn't. The "D" is the initial of the first designer.

Also, we already have a topic on the Boeing project:

Hi,


here is the HeliFerry,a WIG helicopter concept.

Hi

A concept for a multi mission par-wig aircraft studied at DTNSRDC. It includes a version for Sea Control with 4 v/stol aircraft as a payload


best
F_T

From here:


Any further info on this?