Existing Ekranoplans probably will have problems climbing out of ground effect, but that doesn’t mean future Ekranoplans will.
Current Ekranoplans need all those engines just to clear the water because of hydrodynamic drag, a future Ekranoplan with a air cushion landing gear will reduce this drag and will probably need just two engines which will be much more responsive to power changes. Aerodynamic improvements can also make a Ekranoplan much better in OOGE flight too.
That depends. Since the whole point of the WIG is that it doesn’t need much power to carry a given load (compared with an aircraft) then future designers incorporating air cushion landing gear will be faced with three options:
a) Since the extra power may no longer be needed for takeoffs, they could get away with fitting less powerful engines and give up on OOGE flight (by far the cheaper solution)
b) If they only have two engines but still want OOGE flight, those engines would have to be much bigger and more powerful than necessary for WIG mode, so they would be costly and uneconomical
c) To avoid the uneconomical consequences of (b) it would still make sense to fit multiple engines and shut down some of them in WIG mode, which leaves you with the same problem if faced with a sudden and unexpected obstacle like a giant wave.
TW
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