Half airplane half ferry Wing in ground WIG craft efficiently surf an air cushion and are poised to play an important part in interurban mobility The principle though has been around for a while Riding the wave The western world is shocked In the middle of the Cold War in September 1966 U S satellites are taking pictures of a well what Is it an air plane floating in the harbor basin of a Soviet na val base Or a new boat class Well it s a hybrid of both a wing in ground WIG craft And it boasts such mammoth dimensions that U S intelligence officials reverentially dub it Caspian Sea Mon ster The behemoth is 100 meters 328 ft long while the biggest Boeing 747 merely measures 78 meters 256 ft in length Its takeoff mass of 550 metric tons 606 short tons is around 100 tons 110 short tons higher than that of a jumbo jet But what worries western military experts most is the fact that as a WIG craft it flies at a maximum al titude of 14 meters 46 ft literally under their ra dar at a speed of up to 500 km h 310 mph Surfing a rolling air cushion Today we know that their fears were unfounded The Sea Monster was built only once and finally By Volker Paulun 98

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