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Regent's Ground-Effect Vehicle Reimagines Coastal Travel

22 points rbanffy 3 days ago 13 comments

phillipseamore 2 days ago | parent

"The Seaglider is designed to handle ocean swells up to a meter and a half high" - that severely limits where it can be used or during which seasons.

jauntywundrkind 1 hour ago | parent

TBD but I'm hoping those constraints are largely in taxi mode! When it's flying it's much higher up:

> Like similar “Type A” WIGs, the Viceroy’s preferred altitude is about half the length of its 19.8-meter wingspan, so 10 meters above the water. Much above that and a WIG can no longer exploit its aerodynamic edge, and loses stability.

I really want something like this to work, ideally so successfully that it keeps scaling up. Theres such beautiful aerodynamic efficiency from WIG.

Also a huge fan of what looks like a very smart lift generating blown wing, which also could really help this get out of the water fast, give it good efficiency

jandrese 56 minutes ago | parent

I guess you might be able to get around this problem if the vehicle can take off and land on a land based airstrip and then stay at 10m over the water. Otherwise that is a crippling limitation since you not only need the ocean to be relatively calm when taking off, but also when landing.

rbanffy 15 minutes ago | parent

Usually these planes take off and land on rivers, bays, and other protected shores with few waves.

arjie 1 hour ago | parent

It would be cool to have a fast electric ferry service around the Bay Area. Ride your e-bike to the ferry terminal and get to the other side! Cool traffic dodge.

aeontech 1 hour ago | parent

Imagine a fleet of these as ferries between Hawaii's islands for example. Awesome stuff, best of luck to the team!

radiorental 1 hour ago | parent

Except for those pesky waves that Hawaii is known for.

I see this as more applicable in areas coastal metro areas with sheltered waterways and existing ferry systems.

wood_spirit 1 hour ago | parent

China has also been developing secret modern erkanoplans https://www.hisutton.com/Chinese-WIG-2025-07.html

adrianpike 16 minutes ago | parent

Everything old is new again: https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2001/1001/110.html

Havoc 8 minutes ago | parent

10m seems quite high for ground effect?