Re: Boating 101+5½ - ANSWER
From what I have read about them, WIGs function closer to a hovercraft than an airplane. There is air pushing up off the surface of the water that provides lift if the WIG is in motion. Once off the surface of the water they require very little fuel to maintain a 100kn+ speed. Boeing has passed reasonable with their new design. I cant wait to see a Hollywood movie where one of these crashes:<br /><br />
<br /><br />Dwarfing all previous flying giants, the Pelican, a high-capacity cargo plane concept currently being studied by Boeing Phantom Works, would stretch more than the length of a U.S. football field and have a wingspan of 500 feet and a wing area of more than an acre. It would have almost twice the external dimensions of the world's current largest aircraft, the Russian An225, and could transport five times its payload, up to 1,400 tons of cargo.<br /> <br />Designed primarily for long-range, transoceanic transport, the Pelican would fly as low as 20 feet above the sea, taking advantage of an aerodynamic phenomenon that reduces drag and fuel burn. Over land, it would fly at altitudes of 20,000 feet or higher. Operating only from ordinary paved runways, the Pelican would use 38 fuselage-mounted landing gears with a total of 76 tires to distribute its weight.
