Anyone into Ekranoplan's?

[Tram]

I am looking at picking plans for one of these and I am wondering if anyone has any advice on it..

http://www.home-taylor.freeserve.co.uk/whizzywig1/whizzywig%20gallery.html

[hoverman]

Yeah I have built the Whizzywig.

In total I've built 5 radiocontrolled Wig's, but they weren't all very succesfull.
The Whizzywig is a very great performer...it is really fast and has a maximum flying heigth of about 5 cm.

I have made a lot of changes to the design...because at first I just could't get it airborn. The problem was that I had completely underestimated water drag.

After some modifications to the hull bottom, an increase of power and a very smooth paint coat it finaly flew.

As long as you built it carefully and make sure its paint coat is very smooth it will work right of the plans.

Do prepare for crashes though, I found that the model is pretty sensitive to the pitch up tendency, so the model will flip from time to time.

I have been using it for a year now and still its the most fun model I have(ive got planes, heli's, racingboats, hydrofoils, hovercrafts etc.).

The PAR is very fun! When it is lying in the water, without moving in any direction....you point those two front engines up and apply full throttle....it just shoots out of the water, it can actually make a really big jump. After that you can cruise around in PAR-mode, you will find the model to be very agile and it has good accelaration(and of course the sound of two speed400's and one speed 480)

So yeah its a great model and you will enjoy having one allthough noone in around you has one :cool:

Marijn

[Tollytime]

Would you believe the Russians were working on these for transporting military supplies. They built a giant prototype as big as a C-5 Galaxy. They "skipped", across the water using thrust from giant turbo-props.

[Tram]

Cool.. :)

I have not had a chance to build one yet..

[greenseaships]

Man, I seriously WANT to build one someday. I wanna go with a replica of one of those Russian ones.