Re: [DSII] Sinking hover tanks

RBW wrote:

> >Ekranoplans - aka WIGEs or
> >GEVs (the proper use of the term "GEV", as opposed to the incorrect
SF use
> >of the term to mean "hovercraft") - have no plenum chamber; they are
> >essentially aircraft with wings too stubby to allow them to fly very
high,
> >instead relying on the lift-increasing Wing-In-Ground-Effect (or just
> >"Ground Effect" for short) to keep them flying.
>
>On the other hand, there's no technical reason why one couldn't
>hybridise the designs; the Orlyonok, for example, relied on blowing air
>under the wings at least to break free of the water surface

Doesn't make it a hovercraft-ekranoplan hybrid, sorry. Without a plenum 
chamber there's no trace of any hovercraft heritage.

>(I haven't been able to confirm whether it was needed in cruise mode as
well),

Almost certainly not - just like normal flying boats, WIGEs need far
more 
power during take-off than during flight.

>which is a hovercraft characteristic much more than an aircraft one.

IMO it is about as much a "hovercraft" characteristic as booster rockets

for carrier-launched aircraft are, or the underwing exhausts on a 
Harrier... or the engines of just about every flying boat in history :-/

>What I'm suggesting is that the designs are in a continuum,

And what I'm suggesting is that they aren't! Sure, you can build a
hybrid 
hover/WIGE in the same way as you can build a hybrid boat/car (not just
an 
amphibious car, but an amphibious car with boat-shaped hull/boat with
four 
wheels) or van/aircraft, or why not a van/spaceship like Lone Star's
Space 
Winnebago... but all these craft have two *separate* sets of propulsion 
equipment; they're not sliding on some sort of "continuum" between their

different propulsion types.

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ariander@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry