Now I came across this article while surfing the web and thought you guys might find it interesting. (The article is linked down below). So, a company in Singapore (my home yaaay) called WidgetWorks has designed a boat-plane like a vehicle. This plane-boat will cruise up to 6 metres above water at a speed of up to 180 kilometres an hour. Now at this point many of you will be thinking, this guy is crazy this is a boat, not a plane. Though it does have many features of a boat, it is related to aircraft. It lands and takes off like a normal aircraft and has a cockpit similar to airplanes.
Youâve forgotten to mentiond that it flies just above the ground due to âground effectâ. Ground Effect is when the aircraft is in close proximity to the ground and the air passes below the wing and gets trapped between the ground and wing creating a cushion of air in which the aircraft is able to âfloatâ on. It requires some speed to get going though.
It looks like a very fun amphibian to fly here are some cool videos on it if anyone wants to investigate some further;
It looks like that was already brought up - if you see the âhands free landingâ you will see the aircraft falling quite hard into the sea. Iâd imagine it would cope with the force of the water the same in waves, otherwise it just wouldnât be operating in those conditions.
I think theyâd have a high pitch when flaring, so that the fuselage near the tail touches first. Once it touches, youâll hold that pitch and slowly reduce the throttle, to where itâll sit down gently in the water. Think of it like mogul skiing. Except, the waves come up on the plane, while it holds its altitude, and absorbs the wave. Of course, this could be completely wrong, but itâs just what I think.