Whatever Happened To The MD-160 Ekranoplan?

Kintarō Hattori

Hey Guys,

Does anyone know whatever happened to the Russian's MD-160 'Lun' Ekranoplan? Any information I can find tells me that it entered service in 1987, but it doesn't say much after that. Is it still in service, has it been withdrawn, what was the reason?
Ekranoplan's are insane pieces of technology. OK not always terribly practical, but for sheer coolness value they are hard to beat. I wonder will we see any new designs in the near future. Beriev are supposedly working on one which they say will become reality, the Be-2500, and Boeing are supposedly working on a prop powered model called the Pelican.

Jambo

I can remember a russian buisness man in the news recent times stating he wanted to build surface effect craft in cork or limerick !

Slightly off topic but in keeping with surface errect " Craft " google and youtube " Hoverwing " an interesting surface effect hovercraft that can be home build or bought commercially !

Edit : Heres a few more pics on flickr

highlydebased

Read alot about that aircraft on a website recently (cant remember where)

It would be very very interesting if it was a succesfully produced aircraft etc etc

Looks kinda scary though! Sorta thing that would appear in my nightmares!!

shanew

I saw a program about these Russian ground effect
planes on TV (Discovery or similar) recently - the
factory was still there and they interviewed a pilot
and engineer and included some amazing footage
of the test flights. There were incomplete planes
around the factory that they were hoping to get
going again.


Shane.