Matej said:A VERY interesting inside.
Matej said:Well, it is certain that anything close to the EKIP was not invented in the West (yet).
Orionblamblam said:It looks like it might perform more efficiently than BWB at really low speeds... but who'd want to sit in a closed box like that at a hundred and fifty miles an hour when the same level of effort could build a modern airship that travels further, just as fast, and at a fraction of the cost... and with a far better view?
Matej said:Cargo in the coastline perhaps?
And I am not aware nor interested in any Burnelli conspiracy theories.
Regarding the needless drag of a *fat* fuselage like that, the claim about the EKIP is that the vortex cells at the rear prevent separation all the way to the end, so profile drag should be a lot lower than is to be expected of that shape. Seemed to work somewhat in wind tunnels with scale models as far as I remember from publications (EU funded some research in vortex cells), but I doubt how well those magical vortex cells work when scaled up. Still, it looks like fuselage volume would be greater than necessary. They claim this as an advantage over traditional cramped airliners of today, but since weight for a pressure vessel is proportional to volume I would definitely count that, on top of the shape itself, as a definite disadvantage. For extinguishing forest fires however, you don't need to pressurize any passengers, so there I could see it. Induced drag is a different topic alltogether too, difficult to say which way that would go, span decreases but so does wing weight.Orionblamblam said:EKIP looked interesting, but it didn't look like it really provided any verifiable advantages. It's basically got the seating arrangement of a Boeing Blended Wing Body, stuck inside a *fat* fuselage guaranteed to generate a vast amount of needless drag.
Orionblamblam said:Wow. Looks like they've taken the old gag of taking anything that was invented in the West and claiming it was actually invented in Russia
Orionblamblam said:Wow. Looks like they've taken the old gag of taking anything that was invented in the West and claiming it was actually invented in Russia...
flanker said:You know, most of the time, it goes other way. I have seen idiots claiming that MiG-29 is a copy of F-16, and that Su-27 is copy of F-15. Two fins, two engines, wheels, cockpit, you get the idea...
XB-70 Guy said:Looks like a pregnant HL-10 without a vertical tail on its dorsal centerline -SP
Triton said:Artist's impression of Saratov Aviation Plant EKIP (Ecology and Progress) ground effect vehicle developed in the late 1980s.
Source: http://www.liveinternet.ru/community/802038/post118445369/