|
|
|
|
|
|
by j9461701
2113 days ago
|
|
|
>Wouldn't most GEV be able to temporarily "jump" out of ground effect for emergencies like that, or at least wouldn't require much change to gain that capability? But that ability wouldn't really make a difference, not without solving all the other issues as well. Consider these vehicles can travel up to 500 km/h and operate very near to the ground, meaning 1) Vision-obscuring weather like fog or rain 2) A plethora of objects to smack into 3) Very low time to react due to high speed This is why we generally avoid flying planes this low, unless forced to by circumstances. An example of such circumstances is found in military aviation, in which military aircraft fly very low to the earth to avoid detection (a strategy rendered somewhat less effective modernly due to the invention of light-weight Pulse-Doppler radar). In this case the danger from crashing the plane is judged less than the danger from enemy missiles. GEVs take this already challenging and dangerous task, which the military only does because they are being shot at, and then make everything that much more difficult by having the vehicle control like a cow. |
|
|
On the ocean? I'd say that not running into objects that raise high from an ocean would rank pretty low on the scale of control problems that are hard in 2020.
"up to 500 km/h" are military devices built for maximum speed at minimal distance from the surface. A short distance people mover aircraft that tries to trade speed for energy conservation would have very different numbers. And it would be far more nimble, by being able to quickly raise out of the ground effect level, than swimming ocean-surface vessels that are already quite capable of not hitting objects on the ocean (you'd definitely want to improve on the state of that art though).
The biggest issue with this concept, outside of the clearly problematic cost/market size ratio (because designing planes is never cheap) would surely be that an aircraft traveling in ground effect lacks the altitude energy store that allows conventional aircraft to deal surprisingly well with engine outages (or sensor issues) outside of short time windows during start and landing. You'd probably need to spend a lot of mass and effort on making the fuselage properly boatable in emergencies even if it's never intended to swim more than once.