China’s wingship ‘monster’ revives Cold War tech

China seems to have successfully revived the ‘wingship’, that can carry heavy loads at high speeds by flying just above the surface of the sea, decades after the USSR abandoned the technology.

Photographs from Chinese social media appear to show a military wingship, also known as a Wing-in-Ground Effect (Wig) aircraft, in the Bohai Sea off northeastern China.

It is a holy grail of military engineering – a hybrid ship-plane that can carry heavy loads at high speeds by flying just above the surface of the sea. Now, there are hints that China has successfully revived the “wingship”, decades after the technology was abandoned by the Soviet Union.

Photographs from Chinese social media appear to show a military wingship, also known as a Wing-in-Ground Effect (Wig) aircraft, in the Bohai Sea off northeastern China.

If they are authentic, they would represent the revival of a technology not used for military purposes since the 1990s.

Photographs from Chinese social media appear to show a military wingship, also known as a Wing-in-Ground Effect (Wig) aircraft, in the Bohai Sea off northeastern China.

Wingships take advantage of the “ground effect” that allows an aeroplane to travel with greatly increased efficiency when it is flying low over a fixed surface. Drag is reduced, allowing the plane to fly faster, use less fuel and carry heavier cargo than at higher altitudes.

The most famous “ekranoplan”, as they are known in Russian, was the Korabl Maket or “Model-Ship”. It was nicknamed the “Caspian Sea Monster” by American intelligence agencies who spied on it in the 1960s.

The Lun-class ekranoplan in Russia, in 2022. Picture: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.

At its launch in 1966 it was the heaviest aircraft in the world, with a maximum take-off weight of 535 tonnes. It was later surpassed by the Antonov An-225 Mriya, a strategic airlifter that could carry about 590 tonnes until its destruction shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

At 91m long the Caspian Sea Monster remains the longest plane ever, although only one experimental model was made. It crashed in 1980 and remains at the bottom of the Caspian Sea. Another retired ekranoplan, measuring 73m in length, was taken in 2020 to the Russian republic of Dagestan, where it immediately became a tourist attraction.

The Russian ekranoplan has become a tourist site on the Caspian Sea. Picture: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.

The Bohai Monster, as it has been called, appears to be smaller. A photograph shows the aircraft on the surface of the water with floats at its wingtips and four of what look like jet engines mounted above the wings.

Wig craft are much faster than ships and their low altitude allows them to evade detection by many conventional radar systems and anti-aircraft weapons. It was their vulnerability to high seas that led the Soviet Union to abandon plans for their military use.

The Times