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STOL Amphibious Aircraft Using Ground Effect

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sanman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2021
Messages
289
We've all heard of aircraft exploiting wing-in-ground effect. Here's a college prof using some wooden models to demonstrate:



Here's a real life aircraft called the Airfish:



So this design looks interesting, and I was wondering if it could be the basis for a small ultralight amphibious STOL aircraft that would be able to land either on water or even on unprepared ground like a bush plane.

I was thinking that the key to this would be variable wing geometry. The wings would have to be able to shift from their downward-canted position to a level horizontal position.

So that downward-canted position that we see is able to trap the air underneath to improve the ground effect, which is great for STOL. But once the aircraft is airborn, it would be better for the wings to tilt up to a horizontal position, which would then look like a reverse-delta-wing. This would reduce the drag and enable faster, more efficient flight.

To tilt the wings, I guess you'd need some kind of piston-like actuator-strut. Maybe the bottom of the wingtips could have fat tundra tires attached.

Can anybody think of anything else? Comments?
 
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