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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0515.PDF
FLIGHT International, 5 April 1962 513 Russia and the Ground-effect Vehicle A claim that the "father" of the ground-effect vehicle was a Russian— Constantin Eduardovitch Tsiolkovsky—is advanced in this article. Based on a feature in "Pravda" last year, it makes reference to a "collective" of young constructors who made a machine "capable of moving over fields, marshes and water on an air cushion" even before the war. Several different types of ground-effect vehicle are thought to be under development in the USSR, some of them, perhaps, comparable with the SR.N2, subject of a detailed description in "Flight International" last week. SPRING: the roads are swollen with water, the rivers overflow. But ahead, the busy time of sowing. The fate of the harvest largely depends on transport. Thousands of vehicles bog down in the mud, come to a stop before the torrents of the rivers. Even tractors are often helpless against the liquid mire of fields, streams and gullies. The national economy urgently needs cheap, convenient, simple, reliable, and sufficiently rapid vehicles which can work in conditions of bad roads, ice, snow-covered tundra and quicksands. The solution to this important economic problem has already been long ago suggested: air-cushion machines. One of the examples of the application of air cushions is widely known. On August 30 last year [translator's note—actually 1960] Nikita Sergeyevitch Khrushchev visited the Hungarian Industrial Exhibition in Moscow. A polishing machine attracted his attention, constructed by Joseph Pal, a locksmith of one of the Budapest factories. This machine could move lightly over the surface of a smooth plate; it floated on an air 'cushion. Comrade Khrushchev said: "An amazing invention. This is a very clever machine, to say nothing of its inventor." It is not without interest to remember that the father of the air- cushion idea is Constantin Eduardovitch Tsiolkovsky, who pro posed the utilization, for supporting means of transport, "of a layer of air, compressed between the bottom of the vehicle and the road." Even before the war a "collective" of young constructors led by Professor V. Levkov made a machine capable of moving over fields, marshes and water on an air cushion. In 1940 test pilot I. Shelest tested an aircraft which instead of wheels made use of an air cushion. Other Countries, too The war to some extent retarded work on this problem, but in recent years a series of interesting and well-advanced air-cushion apparatus have been successfully tested in our country. Work of this kind has also been carried out widely abroad: today more than 60 foreign firms are occupied with the construction of means of transport on the air-cushion principle. When Comrade F. R. Kozlov visited the firm of Ford they demonstrated to him, as a novelty, a model of an air-cushion automobile. A model of one air-cushion apparatus, the Hovercraft, was demonstrated recently at the British Trade and Industrial Exhibition in Moscow. The increased attention to air-cushion machines and the wide extent of research spring from the fact that these vehicles can move across marsh, mud, snow, sand, thin ice and even across water. This is achieved by compression of air underneath the apparatus. The height to which the machine is lifted over the surface depends on the quantity of air forced underneath it. Air-cushion vehicles are lighter than conventional automobiles; they do not require rubber tyres, which are in short supply. It is particularly profitable to utilize wheelless machines, of large size and weight, which can go everywhere. They possess exceptionally high manoeuvrability and can move sideways or diagonally, or turn around on the spot. In what branches of the national economy can air-cushion appara tus be applied? Primarily in agriculture. During the gathering of the harvest unmade roads quickly deteriorate and become impass able. To provide good roads with hard cement or asphalt surfaces requires heavy capital investment and a great quantity of construc tional materials and equipment. Taking advantage of air-cushion apparatus, it is possible in the shortest time to provide the steppes with transport able to function at every time of the year. It is possible to foresee the creation of a series of types of machines for various purposes—from heavy wagons capable of carrying several hundred tons (these machines will be unrivalled for profitability) to single-seater "aerial motor cycles" for individual use—a very effective means of communica tion. Such machines can not only be used on the virgin lands or on the steppes of the European part of the USSR. With insignificant changes they may be used in the tundra, in the desert—everywhere where there are broad, level expanses. No other country has as many rivers as we have; but in the ice season they are impassable for conventional vessels. In addition, we have many rivers with little water, where navigation is in many places impossible. Air-cushion vessels will be able to go along any river at any time of the year. They will move at the speed of a hydrofoil boat. If a hydrofoil strikes a floating log, it inevitably suffers serious damage, but this will not happen with an air-cushion vessel. Moreover, it can fully or partly go up on a flat bank for load ing and unloading. Such vessels we are already constructing. The Central Construction Bureau of the River Fleet recently published an outline project for a passenger air-cushion ship, with a speed of 50 to 60 kilometres per hour. Air-cushion ships with a water displacement from thousands to tens of thousands of tons can go over the Northern sea route, over water and ice. They do not need ice-breakers and are not endan gered by ice compression. Even the most northerly sea route will be able to work the whole year round. Economic Services Bringing wood out of the forest necessitates the construction of roads or narrow-gauge railways. The use of air-cushion apparatus in the flat areas of our country will merely require simple levelling of the ground with the aid of a grader. The creation of powerful heavy-freight air-cushion apparatus will in a number of areas enable us to avoid construction of railways, for it will be cheaper to build special roads with a very light covering. Such roads may be built without bridges across rivers, because air- cushion vehicles can pass over water. The principle of the air cushion will certainly find wide applica tion in various kinds of machinery, and will be used in transporters, conveyors and so forth. The principle, in the service of the national economy, promises to open new prospects for technical progress. The chief merit of air-cushion machines—the absence of immedi ate contact with the earth—creates a series of difficulties to which we must not close our eyes. It is not easy to achieve good stability and controllability. In addition to an engine for raising the appara tus over the surface of the earth or water, a special engine is neces sary to give it motion. The stream of air created by the lifting apparatus blows up a lot of dust, and over water forms a cloud of spray. These defects, of course, can be eliminated. It is only recently that large constructional "collectives" have set to work in earnest on air-cushion apparatus. Before these workers stand very large problems. It is important from the very beginning to determine definite fields for the applica tion of the machines and to work out the basic model for each one (for example, special machines for the virgin lands, for movement over ice, for small rivers). It is necessary to study foreign experience as critically as possible. At the present time hundreds of air-cushion machines are being designed and constructed abroad, but many of them serve purely advertising purposes, aimed at cheap sensation. It is logical to create in our country a large co-ordinating research and experimental centre for air-cushion apparatus. Evidently, the State Planning Commission, the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Automation and Machine-Construction, along with the Institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and above all the Institute of Complex Transport Problems, must devote attention to these matters.
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