"Perhaps the most important factor, though, is that because WIGs are not classed as aircraft the regulations that govern them are far less onerous. That means that they don’t need to carry the kind of backup power that an aircraft would need for emergency landings, and they don’t need to be flown by trained airline pilots."<p>Just what every passenger wants to hear haha<p>They say this is a solution for the fact electric airplanes are going to only be able to hop between cities and then says how this can only go 180 miles with 12 passengers, hardly a long distance, oh and it has to be across a body of water... and the water can't be too rough... sounds like a great solution!
Somehow I feel that if this ekranoplanes (or sea gliders, changing the name doesn't change the substance[1]) start being employed massively, having these thingies zipping at >100 mph on water won't be particularly appreciated by maritime authorities, that will introduce any number of specific regulations.<p>Besides the electric powering, the general idea can be appreciated in the vidoes of this company in Singapore (that at least has built the actual vehicle):<p><a href="https://www.wigetworks.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wigetworks.com/</a><p>AFAICU the sea needs to be flat or almost flat, which I believe it's not very common in the ocean near the Hawai, no idea how it would behave with waves.<p>[1] they were once called GEV (Ground Effect Vehicles), now they seem to be called WIG (Wing in Ground Effect)
>> a phenomena called “ground effect” to significantly boost flight efficiency<p>I’ve been following rctestflight’s efforts to make an R/C ground effect vehicle <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x617U3s3lcc&t=670s" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x617U3s3lcc&t=670s</a><p>The interesting thing he’s experienced (there’s many videos, i don’t have a single succinct link to share) is that staying in ground effect is hard. If an r/c plane has enough power to take off, then it has enough to break out of ground effect, and almost certainly it will break out.<p>The suggestion then is that something like the ekranoplan might have been able to fly normally to some extent. I don’t know how much the aerodynamics of rc planes scales up though, e.g. i don’t think KF airfoils are a thing in full size aircraft but they’re super effective and popular in rc scale.
Really getting tired of seeing the "emissions-free" weasel phrase in everything electric. Until the electricity is 100% renewable, it's not "emissions-free".
Its not a silly concept, but that render is a bit off.<p>If you want a ground effect plane, then you need your wings much closer to the floor. that plane looks like you'd need to be operating in really calm weather or not at all.<p>Also, I suspect that tail is nowhere near big enough, as its operating outside of ground effect.
I thought seagliders meant the ones that are underwater/use bouyancy/gravity to move.<p>I got into an argument with someone about emissions-free since the electricity/production probably produces emissions somewhere. Until the entire process is clean.
Every one of these "new electric plane" companies never have an actual product. It's always "we're working on the design and hopefully test our prototype next year." The possibilities?.. "12 passengers a total of 180 miles"... haha so economically to have 10 planes do what 1 can do in half the time. And really more than 10 planes if you factor in charging time to get that 180 mile range.
The nice thing about traditional flight is that once you are high enough above the earth, you can recover from failures, taking advantage of the time before you hit the ground.<p>Travelling at 180mph slightly above the ground sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Who is the target market for this? People that can afford a private plane ride for short distances but also care about reducing their emissions? It seems like there isn't much of an overlap there.
Adding a hydrofoil is a cool idea but I'm not sure that plus electric propulsion qualifies it as that novel compared to the Ekranoplan which, two paragraphs later, it describes as a 'proposed design' (also interesting wording for a vehicle with fully functional full scale prototypes). Ultimately the problem with ocean-going ground effect vehicles is that they combine the worst of both worlds; all the expense, fuel usage, load limitations and risk of a plane perpetually two seconds after takeoff, but still at the mercy of rough seas and weather like a boat.<p>Looking at their page, it looks like 'seaglider' is more like a model name than a vehicle classification. It's also interesting that they quote "over 325 sold with a $6bn order backlog" when they haven't even built a full sized working prototype yet. I guess they must cost $18 million each?