In the summer of 1967 sensational photographs were taken by US spy satellite. A tremendous unknown object of about 500 tons weight and 100 meters long, which just looked as an aircraft, was flying over the waters of the Caspian Sea with the speed faster then 500 km/h. This huge machine was named “the Caspian Sea monster” by the Pentagon analysts. The purpose of its construction was tom make the USSR a naval superpower. Read more about the history, construction and recent rebirth of the Caspian Sea monster.

An Ekranoplan, meaning literally "screen plane" in Russian, is a vehicle resembling an aircraft which operates purely on the principles of the ground effect (effekt ekrana in Russian – from which its name derived from). GEV or ground effect vehicles can fly above any flat surface, gliding on the air cushion, while the fly height depends upon the size of the vehicle.

KM ekranoplan model of the "Caspian Sea Monster"

Ekranoplans were sighted for years during the Cold War on the Caspian Sea as vast objects of immense speed. The Unite States intelligence operatives who had spotted the huge vehicle which looked like an airplane with the outer halves of the wings removed, are responsible for calling it with the name Caspian Sea Monster. After the Cold War was finished, it was uncovered that this "monster" was one of several Soviet military designs capable of flight mere meters above the surface of water, thus staying below enemy radar and saving energy.

In the top secret Soviet military development program the KM, as the Caspian Sea Monster was known, weighed 540 tones fully loaded, was over 100 m long (330 ft), and could travel over 400 km/h (250 mi/h), only a few meters above the water. Another now well-known model was the Lun-class. The lifting power of the ekranoplan is among the largest ever achieved, approximately 1,000 tones.

One of the most important design principles is that wing lift is reduced as operating altitude of the ekranoplan is increased, with the use of the mentioned ground effect. It is the same force that makes it impossible for the piece of paper to fall straight down to the floor – instead it glides on an air cushion. Thus in the vertical dimension it is very dynamically stable. Once reaching the speed needed, the ekranoplan was no longer in contact with the water surface, and could move over snow, ice or level land with equal ease, though flight over land, unless the surface were very dependably flat, would have been extremely risky.

Originally developed by the Soviet Union, these craft were very high-speed military transports, and were mostly based on the shores of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea. The largest ekranoplan could transport over long distance over 100 tones of cargo, including tanks and artillery. Dmitri Ustinov, Minister of Defense of the Soviet Union supported the development of ekranoplans. Initially it was planned about 120 ekranoplans (A-90 Orlyonok class) to enter military service in the Soviet Navy. This figure was later reduced to less than thirty ekranoplans, to be deployed mainly for the Baltic and the Black Soviet navies as planned. As soon as Marshal Ustinov died in 1985, Marshal Sokolov, the new Minister of Defense effectively stopped the program funding. The only three operational A-90 Orlyonok ekranoplans were built with improved hull design and at a naval base near Kaspiysk one Lun-class ekranoplan remained.

Ekranoplans have been produced in Nizhni Novgorod by the Volga Shipyard since the fall of the Soviet Union (http://www.volga-shipyard.com).

One Lun-class ekranoplan can be seen on Google Maps and Google Earth in Russian naval base at Kaspiysk on the shores of the Caspian Sea. An unknown structure on a nearby beach may represent another disassembled ekranoplan.

 

Caspian Sea Monster on Google Maps