Design Analysis

Extensive air flow analysis has been made to minimize drag and maximize performance.

This flow analysis shows pressure and velocity gradients for one of the ekranoplan models – at 100 & 250 mph airspeed. The red / orange and yellow colors represent the relative pressure gradients over the expected surfaces relative to the motion of the aircraft. As you can see, the air flowing over the roof is accelerated due to the foil shape of the fuselage. At the nose and tail the air is slowed somewhat.

The green colors on the fuselage and leading edge of the wing represent the relative air pressure. As you can see, there is low pressure on the top of the main wing, float and fuselage. The advantage of the wide fuselage is that it is creating a substantial amount of lift thereby allowing the overall wing area to be reduced which in turn reduces drag.

This flow analysis shows the vorticity of the air frame at 250 mph. The sleek shape minimizes turbulence further reducing drag. A small amount of disturbance can be seen around the rudder, which was expected.

This flow analysis examined a slower moving (at 100 mph) scaled model which was designed as a testing prototype.

We performed pressure and speed flow analysis for all phases of flight on an ekranoplan to understand the flight dynamics. The following video shows specific wing “slice” in respect to the various flight parameters.

In the following exercise we took a hard look analyzing our potential competition in order to understand the shortcomings of the actual manufactured vehicles. Learning from others mistakes is a great way to save yourself a great deal of time, money and pain.