Sea Planes

[lazeyjack]

Russia planes rush to Greek fires
Russian firefighting plane
The Russian Ilyushin can carry a huge cargo of water
Russia is to send firefighting aircraft to help Greece combat forest fires raging amid record high temperatures.

Five aircraft will be sent to Greece on Friday in response to an appeal by Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, Russia's Itar-Tass news agency said.

Greek emergency crews are fighting fires in at least 15 parts of the country, officials said. There are also fires in Bulgaria, Italy and Macedonia.

Hundreds of people have died in sweltering heat in South-East Europe.
THIS JOB 42 TONNES h2o

[safewalrus]

Balloons! Even cheaper, slower true but hell we're going to fast as it is, slow down and enjoy life before it's to late!

Bring back the zepplin (just change the gas is all)

[Poida]

That's easy if you are in America Walrus, you just pull into a gas station.

Poida

[marshmat]

The idea of commercial seaplanes is a romantic one, a throwback to the heady days of the previous century when the big flying boats were the pinnacle of luxury travel.
As nice as it may be to see more of them, practical concerns at present effectively mandate that commercial aircraft be land-based. The first is our desire to cruise at 0.8 Mach; at these speeds, virtually any hullform suitable for water takeoff creates an incredible amount of drag even in the thin air at 30,000 feet up. An additional concern is that the ability to cruise at such high speeds necessitates a very high wing loading, and thus a high landing speed even when loaded to the hilt with high-lift devices. Hitting the waves at a hundred and fifty knots is neither pleasant for the passengers, nor easy on the structure. Landing slower requires a bigger, less heavily loaded wing and thus lower cruise speeds. For high-speed aircraft, by which I mean anything capable of over about three hundred knots, land-based has won out on fundamental engineering considerations.
As to airships. I'm really quite surprised we don't see more of them in a commercial capacity. When filled with helium they're pretty darn safe (I read a report a while ago about a Lightship, a 60-metre if I recall correctly, being tested by the US military- after emptying something like five hundred rounds of machine-gun ammo into the thing, it took two hours before it actually hit the ground with about as much force as a car bumping into a wall while parking). Many current designs can do 150 mph- not jetliner speeds, but they'll use as much fuel in a week of flying as a 737 does taxiing from the gate to the runway.
In any case, each of a 747-400's four engines burns about one litre per second at cruise. Its average fuel consumption per passenger per kilometre is comparable to that of a midsize car or van with two to three people in it. Not quite so horrifically inefficient on that basis, but still wastes an awful lot of fuel compared to what we could do if we were willing to slow down a bit.

[lazeyjack]

nice post Matt, but most Ru seaplanes have a role, purpose built , see there are about a squiilion runways in Siberia, (in summer) and as the pic shows they are deployed all over the world, although the one above is not , that I,m aware a seaplane
if you google up seaplane or amphib, you would be rocked to see justt how many modern ones there are

[marshmat]

Oh, there's plenty of modern seaplanes, and not just Russian. Canadians use them too and there are some very hi-tech rigs out of Japan. But look at what they can do- much lower ceilings and cruise speeds than land-based aircraft of comparable size and capacity. It's exactly like you say- they're purpose built, designed and constructed to be able to operate in areas where there simply is no useable land infrastructure, or where airports are too far between or inconvenient. Try to coax even the best of them to do 0.5 Mach, let alone the 0.8-0.9 cruise of the transcontinental jets. They need heavier structures and aerodynamically awkward hull shapes to be able to operate from the water, and so are substantially less efficient to run than comparable land-based aircraft.

[lazeyjack]

google up Tupelove or lev, you would be sprised just how fast they were

[Poida]

Sure Warshmat they reckon these days you can fly to anywhere in the world at only half the time it takes you to get your luggage at the other end.

Poida

[eponodyne]

I really like the idea of ekranoplans. I have several sketches of possible designs, a couple of them kite-powered. Which would be the bees knickers for getting 3-4 people from point to point at about 40 MPH, if I could just figure out how to make the "vessel" handle any sort of a sea state.

On a much larger scale, the economies of scale become much more apparent. One could move hundreds of tons of cargo at 250-300KT for a much lower fuel burn than either surface transport or high-altitude flight.

The Wing-In-Ground-Effect home page has tons more information than my raddled brain can assimilate. I reckon it's a terrific concept whose time has come.

[kach22i]

UPDATE: 10/09/2007

Interesting site......................about stability.
http://www.equatorair.de/flwing.htm

[safewalrus]

katch that chappie seems to have a small problem with stability - taking of would prove interesting to say the least!

I still can't see the need for all this speed, certain things yes the faster the better but most stuff is both safer and cheaper (and more interesting) at a slow speed!

[charmc]

Originally Posted by safewalrus

I still can't see the need for all this speed, certain things yes the faster the better but most stuff is both safer and cheaper (and more interesting) at a slow speed!

Mike,

I think the point of ground effect flight is that it is both slower and requires less power, so therefore costs less per ton of cargo than high altitude "traditional" cargo flights. Conversely, a ground effect craft with the same power can carry far more payload than a traditional cargo jet.

As for "interesting", 250-300 knots on the deck in a craft the size of a 747 should keep crew and passengers from being bored!

Here's a video covering the history of the Soviet ekranoplan program, pretty informative despite the Russian narration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6HQSNERadQ

[Jimbo1490]

You can have your cake and eat it too with the offering of the Russian company Beriev. Their Albatross amphibious jet takes off from water (in impressively short distance, I might add) has a large useful load (MTOW nearly 200,000 lbs ), decent range and cruises at mach .7 above weather. Here's a video:

http://www.airspacemag.com/multimedia/video/beriev.php

Some pics:

http://www.aviationtrivia.homestead.com/BerievA40.html

It's kind of handsome in a seaplane kind of way, too

Though the higher maintenance costs associated with seaplanes would prevent such an aircraft from competing directly with the likes of the B737 or A320 series, it could make jet travel a reality for millions of people forced to live out their lives on beautiful, remote tropical islands without airports.

Jimbo

[Jimbo1490]

I think the point of ground effect flight is that it is both slower and requires less power, so therefore costs less per ton of cargo than high altitude "traditional" cargo flights.

Except for the energy used to climb to altitude, high altitude flight definitely requires less power and therefore consumes less fuel.

There are several examples of aircraft that evolved from piston to turboprop power, and in the process became much more fuel efficient despite using relatively thirsty turboshaft engines of much greater power output. Why? Because with turbine power, their service ceiling was 10-15,000 ft higher so they flew in thinner air with far less friction. Their cruise speed always went way up, like over 100 kts increase.

Jimbo

[safewalrus]

Charlie

Whilst it is nice to keep the flight interesting I don't want to be 'that' interested the need to go straight from the flight to the bathroom to change my pants is not my idea of fun!! Maybe once, but not now!