KM

from

JSC R.E. Alexeiev Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau

This largest ever built ground effect vehicle was designed in 1963-1964, construction was completed in 1965. The KM's maiden flight was on 18 October 1966, at that time it had manual controls! The KM provided lots of useful data on large scale WIG vehicles. Although only one KM has been built, there are many photo's of the KM with different tail numbers (1 to 8). The numbers indicate the different test phases, some of the changes to the craft were quite big, like wing span (32-40m) and length (92-106m) variations. The max weight varied from 495 to 540 ton.

The KM (Russian abbreviation for prototype ship) has a large T-tail with dihedral and surprisingly a mid wing. Eight large turbojets are mounted at the front of the fuselage, the exhausts of these engines could be deflected in order to create an air cushion under the wing (PAR). Two extra turbojets were mounted on the fin in order to provide extra thrust for accelleration. These engines are equipped with spray deflectors. These engines were relocated from the fin to the top of the flight deck in 1979 in order to reduce sprach ingestion. All of the engines are Dobryin VD-7 turbojets. The maximum wave height at take-off was 3.5 metres.

In December 1980 the KM crashed in the Caspian Sea during take off. The pilot tried to lift-off without having 100% take-off power. They tried to recover the KM, but it broke during lift operations. The KM weighed 540 ton (at that time twice the heaviest aircraft). The Americans who saw the secret KM on sattelite photo's named it the Caspian Sea Monster (or Casp A).

Technical data

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Plan views

The increased size plan views can only be accessed for members of this site.

Pictures of KM

Click on a picture to see an enlarged version. If you have any other (or better quality) pictures, please contact The WIG Page.

picture	size (b)	by	description
	32654	A. Belyaev	top view of KM in cruise
	18130	A. Belyaev	Modified KM with strut mounted engines
	11422	A. Belyaev	KM in high-speed cruise
	3203	A. Belyaev	US spy-sattelite photo of KM
	15882	A. Belyaev	A good impression of the PAR engines of KM
	31706	A. Belyaev	Side view of KM floating
	36645	A. Belyaev	Front view of KM floating
	22017	A. Belyaev	KM in high-speed cruise
	8868	A. Panchenko	Static model of KM

Movies of KM

The WIG Page thanks SUPAERO in Toulouse, France for supplying server space for the movies:

Please click on the picture to view or download the movie. If you have any other movies that you would like to see here, please contact Stéphan at SE Techonolgy who manages the movies section of this site. Please note that you need an MPEG-4 compatible decoder to view the movies.

movie	size (kb)	remarks
	860	The Caspian Sea Monster is probably the most famous Ekranoplan. It is also the biggest and fastest ever. In this movie, a very interesting take-off sequence where one can see the PAR system (thrust + flaps) and the high pitch used for getting out of the water. This movies is available on Graham taylor web site with a better resolution. Movie provided by: Graham Taylor
	704	Very low pass of the 90 metres long monster. Must have been an experience seeing this... Movie provided by: D.N. Synitsin - EAGES

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