In Germany the military potential for WIG boats was recognised and RFB
was contracted by the German military to develop the X-114, requiring it
to fly without ground effect as well as in ground effect. It became
apparent that the conflicting requirements of a WIG boat and an aircraft
lead to a compromise with little advantages and that the true power of
WIG technology lies in staying close to the surface. Therefore the
development was continued with the Airfisch family of WIG boats that
were incapable of sustained flight without groundeffect. Meanwhile Hanno
Fischer had taken over the project from RFB and he pursued Lippisch'
work at his own company called Fischer Flugmechanik. Their two seat
Airfisch 3 was a very successfull design, which has recently been scaled
up to seat 6 passengers. This craft, the FS-8 will soon be series
produced by a Singapore-Australian joint venture called Flightship.
While the Airfisch technology was being made ready for the market,
Fischer was already working on the next generation of WIG boat with
hovercraft technology to assist at take-off. The 2 seat hoverwing
prototype HW-2VT has been successfully demonstrated many times and now
development continues with a 20 seat version.
Although Alexeiev discarded the tandem wing principle after having
tested the SM-1, the concept was later rediscovered by the German Günter
J?rg. After many radio controlled models he succeeded in developing a
stable WIG boat with two wings in a tandem arrangement, the first manned
craft was the J?rg-II. The tandem WIG boat excels in simplicity and low
cost and is the most boat-like of all WIG concepts. These facts may
explain their initial success with boats up to 25 metres in length
built. Unfortunately some technical and business related problems stood
in the way of true commercial success.
The above are the most relevant developments in
wigs sale
history, but there have been many smaller projects around the world,
some of which should be mentioned here. The Kawasaki KAG-3 was a WIG
boat with water propulsion, but the project was abandoned due to
stability problems. In the USA there have not been many projects that
went beyond the drawing board. Especially Lockheed and David W. Taylor
Naval Ship Research and Development Center (DTNSRDC) have conducted a
lot of research work. DTNSRDC especially in the area of PAR. Some years
ago a company called Flarecraft copied the Airfisch-3 and scaled it up.
Due to their lack of expertise the Flarecraft L-325 was a technical
failure, although the attention from the market and the media was
overwhelming.
Commentaires
Il n'y a aucun commentaire sur cet article.