Is it a plane

[astroron (Ron)]

An interesting video of something I had only seen photo's of.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7635441.stm

Cheers

[Octane (Humayun)]

That's both beautiful and amazing.

Nice find, Ron.

H

[LAW (Murphy)]

Ground Effect. It's the reason aircraft are fitted with 'spoilers' (also called 'lift dumpers') on the wings, they (appropriately) dump the lift immediately after the aircraft touches down. Because the flaps compress the air under the wings to increase lift and when that cushion of compressed air meets the tarmac it increases the efficiency of the wings. The americans and russians both had prototype aircraft capable of carrying huge loads over vast distances with ground effect.

Put "ground effect" into youtube and you'll see some pretty crazy 'aircraft'.

[Astro_Bot]

Yes, it is amazing to finally see a video of one.

Is that James May narrating (of Top Gear fame)?

[blink138 (Pat)]

there was an absolutely amazing programme about it on foxtel a couple of years back...... i think, if i am correct it was designed to travel under the wests radar to deliver whatever payload they wanted
pat