Hey Piglet

[Helldiver]

Tim, I was going through the latest issue of Aerotrader, grinning at airplanes, when I ran into a weird thing called the Sea Phantom. So I went to their web site and it's real and they have movies showing it under test. It's ground effect vehicle and it goes wicked fast.
It's weird enough that you might want to take a look at it for future references.
www.seaphantom.com

[Navy Chief]

Now that is just plain cool!!!

NC

[Piglet]

Cool! But how come I keep thinking "Thunderball"!?!?

[expat]

. . . more like Thunderbird 6 . . .

[Lateral-G]

Interesting. But it seems more like a hybrid-hydrofoil rather than a WIG.

In the videos it never actually loses contact with the water. In fact it needs contact with the water to impart directional control. I'm not sure you can say it "flies" since it's never totally in the air and out of contact with the surface.

-G-

[SkippyBing]

But it seems more like a hybrid-hydrofoil rather than a WIG.

There is a difference between Wing in Ground Effect (WIG) vehicles and Ground Effect vehicles, the former being more like aircraft. Ground Effect vehicles use the effect to create lift and reduce drag while not leaving the surface, WIG don't have contact with the surface, and in some cases can leave ground effect altogether.
It's not a hydro-foil as they have wings in the water to generate lift.
Things like this are sort of on the boundary between a number of different technologies so to some extent it ends up being a matter of semantics as to what something is called.

[Lateral-G]

There is a difference between Wing in Ground Effect (WIG) vehicles and Ground Effect vehicles, the former being more like aircraft. Ground Effect vehicles use the effect to create lift and reduce drag while not leaving the surface, WIG don't have contact with the surface, and in some cases can leave ground effect altogether.
It's not a hydro-foil as they have wings in the water to generate lift.
Things like this are sort of on the boundary between a number of different technologies so to some extent it ends up being a matter of semantics as to what something is called.

Well, whatever you want to call it, it doesn't 'fly'.

-G-