DO NOT CHEAT BY RIGHT CLICKING AND GOING TO PROPERTIES!!! (please) post answers in the other thread I will be starting shortly.
Hmmm!
This would be one of those Russian Troop carrying Acranoplan surface effect planes. Not sure of the version though.
you know if you gave this sucker more power it could go higher.
mikeym, it’s not meant to go higher it’s meant to stay low.
I remember that bird. It is Russian and was designed to use gound effect rather than true flight. I cannot remember its designation but it was a cool idea. Black Wolf should be along shortly and he’ll tag it for us.
hehe. I feel so powerful. I know the answer. OH and BTW a kit exists of this beast!!! I just picked it up. I won’t tell you who makes it thogh. It might give you the answer.
I think there was a version with a mess of jet engines stuck on it as well. Where’s Blackwolf when you need him.
Yep. I built it last year. Let’s give 'em another tip: it’s a 1/144 scale kit.
Ack. One of the WIGs… Not one of the more visible ones though.
NTM
The real question is it a boat or is it a plane??? [:D]
Or more likely … a flying boat!
None of the above, it’s a G.E.V. Ground Effect Vehicle, I know the kit, haven’t built it though, and I believe it’s now OOP.
Yeah - those Ekranoplans were pretty fugly - but a bloody amazing platform and idea. Apparently they work very well - but most of the Russian designs were extraordinarily ugly - like this one - I know what the aircraft is, and who makes the kit - even what the kit number is - hee hee…
That is a strange, yet cool looking aircraft. I don´t have a clue.
'Tis a Russian ekranoplan (surface plane) and I think this one was dubbed ‘Orlyonok’ or ‘Little Eagle’, designation A90 I think?. The NATO code name is ‘Orlan’.
I’m not up on my Russian WIGs so I dunno much more than that. However I do know that this thing is often confused with its predecessors, the ‘Lun’ (Dove) and what I believe was the first huge ekranoplan, known in the West as the ‘Caspian Sea Monster’.
I recall reading about these things in AvWeek a long time ago, but I wasn’t too awful interested in them and so, as I said, don’t know much about them. I think that the last Orlan was put into storage back in the early 90’s but I’m just guessing now…
Fade to Black…
To my knowledge, the A90 which is the picture we’re debating had a total production run of three aircraft and 2 were lost in crashes. The remaining one is said to be in storage.
As for the Caspian Sea Monster, I believe that was a fully jet powered one that had six jets in two pods, one either side of the cockpit. I can’t even imagine what the cockpit noise levels must have been in that one.
As for the 1/144 kit, yes I remember it, tooled and molded in Denmark of all places. Not bad, but an extended landing gear option would have been nice. I believe there is a website out there by someone who used that kit as a pattern to scratchbuild a 1/72 model of that sucker.
Saw a documentary about the Caspian Sea Monster (as it was identified by the NRO spooks who first saw it in Satellite photos and didn’t know what it was). The thing supposedly could do 350 knots at 60 ft. off the water. Not much room for error there when your pushing a zillion tons of Soviet iron that fast.
TOM
yup yup. well done blackwolf. The kit is revell 1/144. It is indeed the ekranoplan A-90 Orljonok. It is HUGE and amazingly it is onl;y half the size of the Caspian Sea Monster.