Thundering along at incredible speed and obscured by a cloud of spray, it is easy to see why it was called the “Caspian Sea Monster”.
In fact, the massive machine was an ekranoplan, not quite a plane but not a ship either, and developed in the Soviet Union as a new form of transport.
Its full name was the Korabl-maket (KM) Lun-class ekranoplan, truly a monster at 92 metres long and weighing more than 500 tonnes. Had it been an aircraft it would have been the largest in the world when first tested in the 1960s.
Resurrected technology
The name ekranoplan in Russian translates as "screen glider". In English, such a craft is referred to as a ground-effect vehicle, based on the principle on which it worked, using the downwards thrust of air on water to lift it clear of the waves on a cushion of air, achieving speeds of up to 500 kph.
Abandoned as a project by 1980, the technology that underpinned the Caspian Sea Monster has been reborn with the Viceroy seaglider, built by an American company Regent Craft, who plan to use them in the waters around Abu Dhabi.
Regent has signed an MOU with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (Adio) and Department of Municipalities and Transportation (DMT) to build passenger seagliders that would be used to connect the Emirate’s outlying island.
Using electric engines, they are a low-carbon alternative to aircraft and almost as fast. Regent hopes to be in business by the end of the decade.
Carrying up to 12 passengers, seagliders could travel between Abu Dhabi and Dubai in 30 minutes, with Adio’s director general, Badr Al Olama, predicting they will "shape the future of coastal transportation".
"With immense speed and efficiency, I’m confident Abu Dhabi will see the global deployment of electric seagliders and this will dramatically change how goods and people move between the world’s coastal areas going forward,” Mr Al Olama said.
Game-changing vessel
It’s a far cry from the project abandoned by the then Soviet Union in 1980.
Russian engineers began building ground effect vehicles in the early 1960s for potential military use. They used the cushion of air created by wings moving forward at speed, which was first noticed in early conventional aircraft when landing. While a problem for pilots, the Russian engineers realised this could also be used to great effect, lifting ships clear of the water, free of friction and drag, to reach very hight speeds and with huge payloads.
Designated as a ship, the ekranoplan was assigned to the Soviet navy, but operated by air force pilots
Their ekranoplan designs used stubby wings and multiple engines to provide the thrust needed to initially lift the craft out of the water to a height of barely three metres, at which point secondary engines would take over and propel it forwards.
For the Russians, this was a potential military game-changer. The ekranoplan flew low enough to evade radar but could not be detected by sonar like submarines or surface ships, while avoiding mines and anti-submarine nets. Effectively invisible, it could destroy enemy targets, including American aircraft carriers, at high speed.
Several prototypes were tested by the Soviet Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau, enthusiastically backed by then leader Nikita Khrushchev, who liked to boast that his country now had "ships that could jump over bridges", causing confusion among western military planners.
Around 30 versions of a 125 tonne ekranoplan were planned as a military transports planned for the Baltic and Black Sea, but the ultimate goal was the gigantic Korabl-maket, Russian for model ship, and completed in 1966.
At rest, the KM resembled a floating aircraft with foreshortened wings. Immediately behind the cockpit were two even shorter wings, each mounted with four Dobrynin RD-7 turbojet engines. Two more engines were mounted under its massive 37 metre tail, or stabiliser.
The eight forward engines provided the initial power and speed to lift the ekranoplan clear of the water. Once that had been achieved, they could be powered down, with the twin tail engines sufficient to propel it forward at a cruising speed of around 400 kph and with a range over 1,000 kilometres.
Designated as a ship, the ekranoplan was assigned to the Soviet navy, but operated by air force pilots.
A successful 50-minute maiden flight in August 1967 appeared to be a success. Its enormous size meant the KM was soon detected by a US spy satellite. American intelligence was baffled as to its purpose, but gave it the nickname “Caspian Sea Monster”, after the inland body of water where it was being tested and which is actually the world’s largest saline lake.
The KM’s limitations also became apparent. The craft could only safely fly when waves were less than a couple of metres, ruling out ocean deployment. The spray thrown up also caused saltwater corrosion in the engines.
Gradually the Soviet leadership lost interest in what seemed to be an expensive military white elephant. The end came in 1980 when pilot error caused the KM to crash and sink, although no lives were lost.
By then a second prototype had also been built, with six P-270 Moskit guided anti-ship missiles mounted on the top of the hull, and theoretically available both the Soviet Union, and after 1991, Russia. With only former Soviet republics and Iran bordering the Caspian Sea, its military value was questionable.
Relics on display
Three smaller A-90 Orlyonok or “eaglet” ekranoplan were also built, as transport and beach-landing craft but taken out of service in 1993 having never left the Caspian Sea.
One is now displayed at Moscow’s Navy Museum. Four years ago, the surviving second larger ekranoplan was pulled ashore in Dagestan for a new military museum and theme park in the city of Derbent.
But the demise of the ekranoplan did not spell the end for ground effect craft. Various companies and countries, from Iran to Germany, Singapore, and South Korea, have explored building new models with better technology.
Regent, a Boston-based start-up, seems likely to make them a familiar sight. Regent - an acronym of Regional Electric Ground Effect Nautical Transport - has obtained millions of dollars in funding to build and supply hundreds of seagliders all over the world and is now planning the next generation 100 seater Monarch - a true king compared to a monster, of the sea.
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Uefa Champions League semi-final, second leg
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Islamophobia definition
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
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Expert advice
“Join in with a group like Cycle Safe Dubai or TrainYAS, where you’ll meet like-minded people and always have support on hand.”
Stewart Howison, co-founder of Cycle Safe Dubai and owner of Revolution Cycles
“When you sweat a lot, you lose a lot of salt and other electrolytes from your body. If your electrolytes drop enough, you will be at risk of cramping. To prevent salt deficiency, simply add an electrolyte mix to your water.”
Cornelia Gloor, head of RAK Hospital’s Rehabilitation and Physiotherapy Centre
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can ride as fast or as far during the summer as you do in cooler weather. The heat will make you expend more energy to maintain a speed that might normally be comfortable, so pace yourself when riding during the hotter parts of the day.”
Chandrashekar Nandi, physiotherapist at Burjeel Hospital in Dubai
AI traffic lights to ease congestion at seven points to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Street
The seven points are:
Shakhbout bin Sultan Street
Dhafeer Street
Hadbat Al Ghubainah Street (outbound)
Salama bint Butti Street
Al Dhafra Street
Rabdan Street
Umm Yifina Street exit (inbound)
