The final test of the ekranoplan on the water in the 2020 season

ekranoplan photo 1

I’ll be brief. I finished with the ekranoplan. The water tests went well and now I have to return the motor to its owner, disassemble the boat and put it in a corner for the time being. This time everything was very fast. The weather was good, I quickly assembled the boat, sat at the helm and started off. With the Polini Thor 250, the boat immediately jumped into the water and glided along the surface. The front wing is always in the air at a speed of 35-40 km / h, the rear wing is also in the air and the boat is held by the water only with rubber strips that I screwed on before the last test. In general, at a speed of 50 km per hour, the boat flies very confidently, but at some point (I want to note that not always) the boat begins to sway and longitudinal instability arises. The first thought that came to my mind was that because the wings were too close to each other, it would be possible to lengthen the hull, or install a horizontal stabilizer to balance the boat in flight. I would also like to redo the motor mount again and reduce the motor angle by five degrees, plus raise it a little higher. Finally, you need to slightly reduce the angle of attack of the front wing by a few degrees. But this is all another time, I was exhausted during this season, there were so many alterations and visits. It is both physically and mentally difficult for one person to do more. Therefore, with a light heart, I postpone this project until modern times, what I wanted to do – lifted my boat into the air. Made my own small ekranoplan. Though not high, it flies. And it is also well managed. I didn’t make any extreme reversals so that some accident didn’t happen. Since the motor is not mine and I didn’t want to get a few thousand euros. Having made three high-speed races on the lake, I understood everything for myself and quickly disassembled the boat, washed off the lake until no one woke up in the vicinity. So now I am satisfied and can calmly engage in other projects that I am already doing in parallel. These will also be motor boats. One will be a two-seater motor boat which I am going to make according to the drawings of 1960 and the second one is a single-seat speedboat according to the drawings of 1941 which I am going to convert into an airboat with aviation styling. So what’s next is more. The video is as usual below.