Some Topics on WIG (Ekranoplan) design

 In this work the author talks about some

topics on designing WIG in three parts.
 Part A refers to new transportation efficiency
parameters named “Modified Effective Lift”.
 Part B refers to an existing manned
PAR-WIG capable of OGE flight, of which
the horizontal-tail volume ratio is
investigated.
 Part C refers to selection of several design
parameters at IGE cruise, which are
necessary for WIGs to have attractive
transportation efficiency.
 The author and his colleagues have used
“Effective Lift Drag Ratio” WV/P
which is the reciprocal on the specific
power.
 The motive of the present Part A is two-fold:
1. First we want to know the relative transportation
efficiency of some existing WIGs by using these
simple operational parameters.
2. Second, the present author wants to define new
better parameters, if possible.
 In the graph the scale are logarithmic.
 The “limiting line” is drawn first by
Gabrielli-Kerman.
 They named it for the reason that vehicles
lying on it have the best operational efficiency
at every speed.
 It is quite interesting that this line has a slope
line close to 45 degrees.
 The present author notices that when the
value of HP/WV/V is used instead of
HP/VP , than the limiting line becomes
horizontal.
 It seems not to be superficial, but to have a
substantial meaning.
 Namely this suggests that more important as
operational efficiency is not L/D, but rather
(L/D)V.
 For example, we can consider the
transportation efficiency of airship; when an
airship is floating without relative speed to
the air, than L/D=INF.
though it makes no transportation work.
 Therefore L/D must be multiplied by V, in
order to express useful transportation work.
 The limiting line becomes horizontal.
P – installed power.
T – installed thrust.
VCR – cruise velocity.
VMAX – maximum velocity.
EFF – effective lift drag ratio (WG*VCR/P).
WP-payload.
WG – gross weight.
NP –number of passengers.
M – V/(sonic speed at the standard see level)
Investigation of Existing WIG Vehicles

 From table 1 we see some information about

WIGs , but one is missing , the Orlyonok ,
because of no installed power or thrust is
available to the present author.

WP - payload.
NP – number of passengers.
 They used VCR instead of VMAX as far as they
can.
They converted between WP and NP as follows:
WP / NP  100  kgf  for 1  NP  10
WP / NP  133 kgf  for NP  10
 The border value NP=10 is set somewhat arbitrarily.
The value “133” is determined according to the
values given for Orlyonok.
 The author believes that WIGs should have a higher
speed from 450 to 500 km/h in order to have an
operational efficiency competitive with airplanes.
 Problems of Longitudinal Stability
 The author thinks that there are fewer problem for
lateral and directional modes than for longitudinal one.
 The reason is that the directional one is solved by
suitable vertical fins and rudders.
 The lateral one during IGE run is solved by dividing
the space under the main wing, using the fuselage or a
center-fin.
 But difficulties concerning longitudinal flying-qualities
are perceived at once from awfully bigger horizontal tail
volumes of existing WIG vehicles.
Sw –area of main wing.
St – area of horizontal tail.
bw – span of main wing.
bt – span of horizontal tail.
c – chord length of main wing.
AR –geometrical aspect ratio of main wing.
ARt–aspect ratio of horizontal tail.
CG – center of gravity.
 From the article we understand that the
designers realized that larger tail-volume is
inevitable at the later design of it.
 It can be understand that all designers of
WIGs want ideally the tail-volume
comparable to conventional airplanes, but
not so in practice in order to obtain
necessary and sufficient flying quality.
 Bigger tails introduce larger empty weight
as well as parasite drag.
 The author supposes that there are two
reasons of big tails:
1. Penalty imposed from the merit of OGE flight.
2. Insufficient control ability of longitudinal
attitude during the initial stage of take-off of
PAR-WIG
("Power-Augmented Ram Wing In Ground
effect“) .
 Reasons Why Bigger Horizontal
Tail Is Required
 For simplicity we discuss the Wig vehicles
having main wing of non-swept and almost
rectangular plan-view.
 Theoretical basis:
The basic formula for the stick-fixed static stability is:
 dCm   X CG    dCm  
    N0      xGA     TT 
 dCL   C    dC  
 L Fus , Nac 
N0 : stick-fixed neural point.
XCG : CG position from leading edge.
XAC : position of aerodynamic center from
leading edge.
X CG  X AC
xGA 
C
TT : contribution of horizontal tail.
  The author suppose that the quantity given
by the equation must be almost the same
between the conventional airplane and
PAR-WIG.

 dCm   X CG    dCm  
    N0      xGA     TT 
 dCL   C    dC  
 L Fus , Nac 

Fus=fuesalge.
Nac=nacelle
 at  d 
TT  t TV 1  
aw  d 

TV=LSt/CSw=horizontal tail volume ratio.

t = ratio of dynamic pressure at tail to one at
main wing.
 d 
downwash  1  
 d  
at
Lift _ curve _ slope 
aw
Then we have:

TT  xGA H  TT  xGA W

H and W mean airplane and WIG, respectively.
From this we have the ratio of TV.
TWW t H  xGA 
 1  
TVH tW  TTH 
xGA  xGA,W  xGA, H

The typical value of TTH is 0.22 .

 The first reason of big tail

 The ratio of t could become enormous, during

take-off run of PAR-WIG with T-tail.
 The duration of take-off run of PAR-WIG is
considerable, from incomplete airborne (the initial
stage) to the complete airborne (the final stage).
 Problems may occur at the initial stage of incomplete
airborne.
 The main wing may be immersed in an augmented
stream, while the airstream around the horizontal part
of T tail would be negligibly weak.
 Therefore it seems that the longitudinal
attitude can hardly be controlled by T-tail.
 The author thinks that this is the first reason
why awfully big horizontal tail becomes
essentsail.
 This difficulty may be solved by the
“WIG-let” proposed by the present author.
 The second reason of big tail

 Designers of WIG capable of OGE flight are often

worried about the selection of longitudinal position of
center-of-gravity (CG), because only one position
cannot become simultaneously best for both OGE and
IGE flights.
 ACOGE: approx. 25%C
CPIGE: approx. 33%C for flat-lower-surface wings.
CP’IGE: approx. 40-50%C for cambered-lower-surface
wings.
These are two extreme solution;
One is CG put near 25%C, and the other is CG
put near CP’IGE.
In the former, we obtain better stability at
OGE flight.
In the latter, we can minimise the loss due to
trim loads at IGE flight.
 Penalty due to emphasizing longitudinal
stability at OGE flight.
In this case CG would be put much ahead
of CP’IGE.
Any gap between CG and CP’IGE may often
require an aerodynamic load on the
horizontal tail for trim.
The worst case may be that the horizontal
tail is a rear T-tail ; it is most possible case
like Russian famous Orlyonok.
 Then the T-tail flying at OGE must generate a
download which accompanies a significant
induced drag.
 Moreover, the main wing must generate an excess
lift force compensating the download on the tail.
 Thus the main wing too introduces an additional
induced drag even at IGE.
 Such additional aerodynamics loads often result in
totally about 5-10 % loss in lift-drag ratio of WIG.
 Penalty due to weighting trim at IGE flight.
Now we consider the opposite case where
CG position is selected at CP’IGE position in
the IGE flight.
The CG position would be locate at a
position much rearward of ACOGE.
Therefore the longitudinal stability in OGE
flight would become quite insufficient, and so
require an awfully big tail-volume.
 Possible method to solve the problem:
1. Use of wing profile having as forward CPIGE
position as possible at IGE flight.
Camber-less or S-camber is recommended.
Than we have CPIGE=C/3 or even more ahead.
2. Use of variable CG position, namely from
rearward CG at IGE to forward CG at OGE
flight. Longitudinal movement of excess fuel
may be promising.
3. Use of the canard configuration ; then CG can
be placed between the both CP’IGE , without
any down load to trim.
 Possible method to solve the problem:
Use of wing profile having as forward CPIGE
position as possible at IGE flight.
Camber-less or S-camber is recommended.
Than we have CPIGE=C/3 or even more ahead.

 In order to use the device(1) , the lift

coefficient require in IGE cruise should be
moderated against the old term “Ram
Wing”
 Possible method to solve the problem:
Use of variable CG position, namely from
rearward CG at IGE to forward CG at OGE
flight. Longitudinal movement of excess fuel
may be promising.

 The device (2) may be plausible, only when

rapid and/or frequent changes between
IGE and OGE flights are not require.
 Possible method to solve the problem:
Use of the canard configuration ; then CG can
be placed between the both CP’IGE , without
any down load to trim.
 The device (3) may be promising, if
directional stability is solved.
There is another problem:
The longitudinal trim during take-off.
 PAR-effect due to jets only can augment effectively
the canard lift.
Meanwhile, if propellers and/or fans would be used,
a long overhung nose must be required ahead of the
canard as we see in figure 5.
Of course this may introduce excess empty weight
as well as injure the directional stability.
Use of jets, however, results in another demerit ;
excessive noise unacceptable near terminals.
Desirable Lift coefficient at IGE Cruise.

 In this part, desirable lift coefficient at IGE

cruise is investigated from a view point of
systematically optimized performance.
 The following assumption are used to
obtain the fundamental formulas.
1. The ‘parabola’ formula for CL vs. CD is
valid.
2. The author considers “Take-off ” condition
of PAR-WIG vehicles as shown in table-3.
Namely, the PAR-WIG vehicles are almost
supported aerodynamically even an zero
speed.
 Formulas for cruising condition:

CL ,OPT   CDP    AG  e 
0.5

L
   0.5   AG  e / CDP 
0.5

 D max
CL,CR should be selected lower than CL,OPT , because
CL,OPT is apt to yield a too-slow-speed.

Therefore we put: CL ,CR  k  CL ,OPT

Where k is set at 0.8 arbitrarily.

 Formulas for the take-off condition:
2
CL ,CR  VTO 
 
CL ,OPT  VCR 
In this article the author focused his interest on the
following domain:
 
L
22.5   
 D max
km
VTO  200
h
Under the conditions of: km
450  VCR
AGe=10-15 h
CDP=0.015-0.02
 The Equation : CDP=0.015-0.02 expects an
aerodynamically refined WIG comparable
with excellent conventional airplanes ;
This would require considerable effort of
WIG designers, like retractable steps and
small-sized end plates suggested by Russian
modern WIG concept.
 The present author emphasize that low lift
coefficient at IGE cruise is considerably
favorable from view point of flying quality,
as described in Part B.
 The center-of-pressure CPIGE of main wing
may locate at approximately Chord/3 point
for low-cambered wings, much ahead of 40%
chord.
 Thus we can select the CG position at 33%C
or even further ahead, which is good
compromise between IGE and OGE flights.
 Namely, small range of
CPIGE=30%C ~ CG ~ ACOGE=25%C
requires no excessive aerodynamic trim load
at IGE, cruise, and gives sufficient
longitudinal stability at OGE flight.
 Conclsion
 Some discussion on designing WIG vehicles are
presented in three Parts.
 In Part A , a new parameter for transportation
efficiency is defined. Using this parameter some
existing manned WIG vehicles are compared
with other kind of vehicles.
 Conclsion
 Part B is pointed out that existing manned PAR-
WIGs capable of OGE flights have an awfully
big horizontal-tail-volume ratio.
two reasons and plausible solutions are
suggested.
 Conclsion
 In Part C, desirable values of some design parameters
are recommended in order to develop a WIG having
excellent transportation efficiency.
It is noteworthy that the desirable lift coefficient at IGE
cruise may be 0.6 or less.
Hence no chamber of main wing-lower-surface is
recommended.
The byproduct is quite fortunate.
most of the troubles in longitudinal flying-quality could
be relieved significantly.
 Conclsion
 Youcan find the Power point file at
my site:

http://t2.technion.ac.il/~sbgjb/