The Revolution has arrived...

INTRODUCTION

Ever since the beginning of manned flight pilots have experienced something strange when landing an aircraft. Just before touchdown it suddenly feels like the aircraft just doesn't want to go lower. It just wants to go on and on due to the air that is trapped between the wing and the runway, forming an air cushion. The air cushion is best felt in low wing aircraft with large wing areas. This phenomenon is called (aerodynamic) ground effect. The Wright brothers probably had not even flown out of ground effect in their early flights, they benefited from ground effect without even knowing it existed.

WIG is an abbreviation of Wing In Ground-effect. A WIG boat can be seen as a crossover between a hovercraft and an aircraft. It flies just above the surface, usually the water surface, therefore others use the term WISE or WISES (Wing In Surface Effect Ship). The Russians use the word Ekranoplan (Ekran = screen, plan = plane), which is also commonly used in other languages nowadays.

WIG boats have been around for decades and in the past 40 years a large number of different WIG craft have been designed and built, but only our WIGs are currently currently commercially available.

Despite more than 4 decades of development apparently WIG craft have not reached maturity since they are not widely in use yet. Perhaps the most important reason for this is the fact that especially in the former USSR, where ground effect technology was the most advanced, the Ekranoplan programme was highly secret. In the years before Perestroyka it was even forbidden to use the word Ekranoplan.

ADVANTAGES

• WIG boats can fulfill the need for increased speed of marine transport and may thus fill the gap between shipping and aviation.
• WIG boats achieve high speeds while still maintaining high efficiency, especially when compared to other high speed marine craft.
• Due to the marine nature of WIG boats their operating cost is much lower as compared to aircraft.
• The infrastructural requirements for WIG boats are very low, any existing port is sufficient.
• Especially in a wavy sea the comfort level in cruise is very high as compared to other high speed marine craft.
• WIG Crafts are recognized as maritime vessels for construction, insurance, operator licensing and registration requirements

NOW AVAILABLE IN TUKEY

With cruising speeds up to 120 mile per hour our FLIGHTSHIPs are faster than almost all other sea crafts and over short to medium distances it provides travel time comparable to helicopters and small aircrafts. Cruising above the water surface without water contact, WIG crafts provide an efficient and safe means of transportation while offering natural stealth.
 

Flight attitude in our FLIGHTSHIPs are extremely stable. Sea state and wave action have only a very minor effect when airborne as it operates above the water up to around 50% of the wingspan. The larger the vessel, the higher the surface clearance and wave height capability. Our FLIGHTSHIPs have a maximum water surface clearance capability of up to nine feet over the crests of 12 foot waves.

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