I Crashed My DIY Ekranoplan (And Fell 40 Feet)

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[@AzizaVFR]

Looking at the footage, the craft gets a huge boost in angle of attack the moment the tow rope is suspended above the water. When you try this experiment again, raise your tow point on the boat to the height above the water you have designed the eyelet to fly in ground effect. This will, hopefully, put the tension parallel to the water surface.

[@terrycarver1255]

Agreed, also taking a few degrees out of angle of attack on front wings and maybe add a smidge to the elevator . I think the plane speed of the boat is too high with that , the speed is not variable with fixed angles on the wings . Good luck

[@ingridschellhaas7041]

This is what happens if the technology is copied without knowing. We are the Tandem wing specialists and know what happened

[@Project-Air]

OMG this is sick - you must be one of the few people to bail out of an ekranoplane and live to ride one another day 😆

[@T.R.E.D.]

I didnt expect to have legit PTSD this nice Sunday morning lol. If any of you have ever heard of the 2005 kite tube that killed a bunch of people. I was almost one of those people. We couldn't get it to lift off when we first got it, I was about 12 at the time. My uncle thought we should extend the rope, by adding a additional length of water-skiing rope. I happened to be next to try the kite tube, with the extended rope, and happened to be the person to figure out you have to jump and fully lean back to get it to fly. Let me tell you, at 12, I vividly remember seeing the top of the walls of the canyon the lake was in, at least 2 stories. What he said about "I didn't want it to pile drive me" happened to me. I couldn't move and just sat there in the water. But you know when your life jacket is a hair too small you kind of sink if you dont kick your legs. But I couldn't move. Water was going in my mouth and nose as my family drove around, seemingly taking forever. I was drowning in front of them, slowly but surly. Luckily my uncle realized it was serious and jumped in and got me. Idk why I felt compared to share that in such detail, maybe to say I'm glad you guys are ok. Flying a thing with one rope connection point is never a good idea. It's been tried over and over. The pile drive will get you. I seriously was sweating watching that video. I'm all good today. Just busted both eardrums that day and hurt my back really bad, lower back still gives me issues from time to time. If you read all this, thanks, maybe you're the therapist I always should have had listening to my ptsd issues 😂

[@dronefootage2778]

I'm glad you're ok. i broke my ankle slipping on ice and my foot was sideways, it scares the crap out of me just thinking about it. so far i'm all fixed up again and now i'm one of those people with a bunch of metal in my foot but i know what you mean because now i'm so scared walking even in the snow.

[@someotherdude]

It is very understandable! I got in a car accident that should have killed me- I was very lucky. I was hit at high speed from behind, didn't see it coming, and my car came apart. For more than a year after the accident I had PTSD, I couldn't shake the idea that a car would come out of somewhere and hit me. It was uncontrollable, I'd sit at a red light on and empty road and I'd be looking all around, thinking a car would hit me. It was like a spontaneous panic attack. I also know about drowning right in front of people who don't realize. That's a lot of trauma!!

[@T.R.E.D.]

@@someotherdude I’m glad you’re ok! Car trauma is very intense. I can’t imagine driving everyday with that looming, at least for me I just never went back on tubes again and it hasn’t even popped in my head much until I saw this video.

[@T.R.E.D.]

@@dronefootage2778 thank you, I’m glad you’re foot is better! Ice is no joke, it can seriously be dangerous. Hopefully you don’t have any issues from that in the future!

[@dronefootage2778]

@@T.R.E.D. thanks TRED, very kind of you. so far i've been lucky. my foot is the same as before, it's as if it never happened. i had a really good surgeon. i didn't even need to take the pain pills after the surgery. had a nerve block for about 3 days and all i know is that after that ran out i didn't have any pain. lots and lots of prayers, i'm convinced that made the difference.

[@microbuilder]

Handles that run parallel with the body might make forward/back weight transfer a bit easier, rather than trying to rely on just leaning forward or back, you could move your entire body by being able to walk forwards/back however many steps needed.

[@sleeplessstu]

If nothing else, you’ve got an EPIC video ! I’m pretty sure you’re the only man in the world to have “bailed out” of an ekranoplan 😂 Thank GOODNESS you didn’t land on Daniel’s plane …. You couldn’t have planned this “near miss” any better ! This gives me inspiration to prep my old Thunderbird Iroquois to be an Ekranoplan tow boat 😅. BRAVO for another fine adventure ! 👍🏼

[@llYossarian]

Maybe technically true but "flying" inflatable rafts behind powerboats is/used to be a fairly popular adventure/tourist activity but this precise kind of stalling and falling incident is so common that it's become restricted or illegal in a lot of places. -- "Kite Tubing" _(__kzbin.info/www/bejne/jGrdlnxuiL55sKM)_

[@rctestflight]

PAR thrust here we come! And if that fails at least we'll have the worlds biggest R/C GEV!

[@thinkflight]

This is true i did not think of that

[@eriknulty6392]

@@thinkflight i would modify that one to sit down on. with a elevator and roll control

[@Tusai]

Wow! This is extremely impressive and scary! As someone who does water sports, I know how high speed falls feel. Also, man you are lucky to have avoided the RC plane. Those props are scary for sure!

[@arwo1143]

Those are small, they’re not really an issue That would be the equivalent of a paper cut if you fell on them, but I wouldn’t stick a finger in voluntarily….

[@Tusai]

@@arwo1143 I have the scars to prove otherwise. And these are probably motors much more powerful than what took the tip of my finger clean off.

[@AviationAngler]

@@Tusai agreed I've got a scar from 5 stitches in hand from one going full throttle at me if it was a inch or 2 further I prob would've slit my wrists

[@justinryan9417]

@@arwo1143 I've got a small 1500mm wide twin engine RC plane,one of it's 5 bladed props sliced right through the 50 or 60 page manual when I forgot to leave the throttle cut engaged once.

[@mark675]

@@Tusai agreed, theyre not big but are very sharp, I cut my wrist with one (video on my channel lol)

[@bodeym]

Look into the design of the "3-ring" release system for skydiving parachute systems. They're designed to be released under full tension unlike the most release systems / shackles.

[@simonl7784]

Wow, good job! great vid, great project. You looked sore and drained at the end but you've pulled it off and you'll remember this day for the rest of your life. Thanks for sharing this experience!

[@sliznippa]

“I was really surprised at how controllable it is with the weight shift”. Every flight results in ekanocrash departing controlled flight. Lol

[@kitchencone]

There's something funky going on with the tow rope, and the attachment point. With the low attachment point, the tow rope stays stuck in the water, and pulls down on the aircraft. Notice at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="550">9:10</a> when the aircraft finally pulls the tow rope completely clear of the water, and the aircraft wants to very quickly rise, being free of the downward pull.

[@GoldenCroc]

Hear hear.

[@coriscotupi]

Never climb higher than the fall you're willing to take.

[@AerialWaviator]

Some very EPIC seconds captured in 14 seconds of human flight history. (<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="353">5:53</a>-<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="371">6:11</a>) The APEX Ekranoplan preformed exceptionally well as a camera platform. Some amazing planing, building and editing skills on display leading up to this video, (excluding the upgraded rope release mechanism used in this video). Having just watched the NASA Crew5 Dragon launch prior to this (today), watching your 14 seconds of flight was as thrilling as watching their 9 minutes of flight from the launchpad to orbit. As NASA has demonstrated (more than once), moderating the amount of learning that occurs during any one flight helps to build a larger body of knowledge to share. This channel is truly high level skill building and Skill Sharing. Congratulations on checking some items off your bucket list this summer, including the unplanned items. ;) Excellent work expanding the DYI Ekranoplan’s flight envelope, your bucket list, and the human knowledge base of flight. FYI: the first powered human flight at Kitty Hawk was just 12 seconds long.

[@kadmow]

weight shift has severe limitations when everything becomes dynamic. - may need some wing warping or other aoa augmentation/control implementation Another "safety" feature from the kiting world is to shift the tow point forward - to a secondary anchor on the leading edge / nose in the event of an uncontrolled pitch-up...

[@manjunathayr9348]

Few of my observations and probably it might help, 1) In my pre-teen i made my first kite and failed big time and the reason was that I did not string my kite appropriately, this is the same mistake i observe in your build ( what ever i see in your video ) your build have only one rope clamp in front which makes the pull unstable. Bolt the second clamp below the fuselage a little far from the first one and tie the rope between........give a try, as its done in the KITE. ¬ Good Luck :), yep I think release mechanism is not really necessary in here when you can control the speed.

[@kevinhofmans4518]

Really cool project! Wish I was there! 🙂 Your GEV or WIG seems fine as long as you stay on the air "cushion" between the water and the wings. As soon as you go higher I can clearly see properties of an unstable aircraft. Meaning that once you exceed a certain angle of attack there is no way to recover. This is caused by your Center of Pressure(CP) being in front of your Center of Gravity(CG) and will never work unless you have artificial stabilization. The solution would be to shift your CG forward by a lot(in front of the CP) and to make sure your tail is providing(slightly) negative lift as a compensation. This is the way naturally stable planes fly. Good luck! Looking forward for more vids 😁

[@Snipermac99]

Glad you're ok. That could have gone far worse. You survived and your craft survived (mostly).

[@NicholasRehm]

Now that the lessons have been learned, I’ll gladly take a ride on V2 😉

[@thinkflight]

Hahahahaha

[@andymuzzo8568]

Holy cow man.

[@Argosh]

Repeat after me: Critical systems need a backup. Critical systems need a backup. Critical systems need a backup. Two examples: You're missing a way to kill lift on this design if the weight steering fails and the release hook was a single point of failure. The first human to fly fixed wing heavier than air was Otto Lilienthal. He died in a loss of control accident on his self built center of gravity controlled glider.

[@thinkflight]

What is considered a backup? For altitude safety I have three options: weight shift, jump, or rope release. Sounds redundant to me.... I got out alive thanks to having a backup for a backup.

[@Argosh]

​@@thinkflight consider the purpose of a system. Your sole means of controlling flight is the weight shifting. A backup for a system needs to somehow perform the original task even if only degraded. I obviously don't know your background, but from what I've seen of this aircraft it is highly unstable in the pitch axis and has a severe amount of power-on pitchup. At 0:11 you lean full forward, but there is no change of pitch. Instead the pitch increases(!) until you begin your bailout at 0:13. At no point in the accident sequence do you have positive control of your pitch axis. At a minimum you could have added some sort of air brake to be able to destroy lift on your wing giving you at least one backup means of control. I've chosen Otto Lilienthal on purpose, he is very much a hero of my childhood, despite him having died before the Wright Brothers ever took flight. There were a lot of smart people back then who worked out the basics of aerodynamics but Lilienthal was the first one who verified them. His experimentation laid the foundation of our understanding of aerodynamic lift. And despite the fact he was one of a kind and the most experienced human pilot ever, he died to a simple gust of wind that brought his weight controlled aircraft into a state of flight beyond recovery. Aviation Safety Rules are written in blood. A single means of pitch control that is insufficient to control pitch above a certain airspeed is not safe. I've had the same discussion with several other youtubers dabbling in flight over the years. Peter Sripol luckily never payed for the shortcuts he took. Peter Muller from Raptor Aircraft tried to get a professional test pilot, but when the only one who even wanted to attempt it decided to back out he continued on his own and almost died. He only got saved by the mandatory airframe parachute. I have absolutely no interest in seeing someone from the KZbin aviation community die or have a life changing injury. So please, by all means don't take my advice, but go talk with people familiar with the systems you are using. Or at least familiar with systems similar to what you use. I have no personal experience with hang gliding, but they are among the few users of weight shifting controls in aviation nowadays. Barring that you need to train yourself in more pessimistic thinking. I look at any part of any given system and think "how does this break, and what else breaks WHEN it does"? A new airframe is a dangerous thing. Keep that in mind.

[@JoeOvercoat]

@@thinkflight No, you got damn lucky with an uncontrolled bail. Almost right into your chase aircraft. what the man said about critical systems applies to any aviation endeavor if you’re trying to make a craft that anyone could use. If you want to take risks that’s cool, just recognize the risks and articulate to yourself that you are taking risk. ‘Safety First’ does not mean you have to stay at home it just means you need to use your brain all the time. Decision Fatigue & Completion Bias both applied here. P.S. What if the drone hit you in the face and knocked you unconscious? I’m not confident that your crew could get back around soon enough to save you from drowning. Safety First says drill jumping off the left side not the drone side. Drill, drill, drill. In aviation things happen too quickly to make the decision when bad things start happening: you have got to practice what you’re going to do in advance. Or, admit to yourself you are taking risk.

[@myotherusername9224]

@@thinkflight almost all of the comments here are misguided, *just like you*. most people are suggesting more stupid ideas and missing the important factors that almost got you killed. Skillshare decision making training is nice but you need adult supervision. so much is mistaken in your quest for revenue by making thrilling videos. weight shift is one of the worst ways of controlling an aircraft. Lillienthal said 'sacrifices must be made' after crashing one, and then died from the injuries. Sacrifices are optional, and based on risk. learn to minimize risk. wind tunnel research was proven by the Wrights to lead to success - why are you not copying what works? what were you thinking that you allowed the tow boat to get you up to 40 feet in an aircraft you weren't positive you could control ? Ekranoplan are surface effect vehicles. At 40' altitude, it's not an ekranoplan, it's a fixed wing aircraft. towing an aircraft in testing and training can be done, but you violated almost all of the best practices we already know from surface towing gliders. the joviality and blase reaction following your crash turns my stomach. You could easily have died, and the tone of the group afterward shows how ignorant and heedless your approach is. I hope you seek out advice from aerospace professionals before you go any further with manned flight. You are a funeral waiting to happen, a dead man walking.

[@peteranderson037]

There is a reason why the Wright Brothers abandoned that kind of weight shift after Otto Lilienthal's death. You can get your Ekranoplan to work, you just need way more control authority than what that kind of weight shifting can deliver.

[@nonoyorbusness]

There's a happy medium between never leaving your room and this, somewhere!

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

Safety third? "Shake hands with danger"!

[@JoeOvercoat]

Right? People don’t understand that the motto “If it can go wrong, it will go wrong”, where you’re supposed to use your brain quantify the risk and assess it with a design element if appropriate.

[@johnbeauvais3159]

Perhaps changing the front wing to incorporate a low speed slot into the leading edge, at high AOA the slot helps prevent boundary layer separation and as the speed increases the AOA drops and the slot doesn’t add extra drag. Just an idea, it wouldn’t require adding any additional control surfaces or operator controls. One question, does the craft seem to maintain stability around the vertical axis? From the incidence angle I would think a lot of the vertical stabilizer authority would be negated by the air coming around the fuselage. Also another towed craft idea for you, the Focke-Achgelis FA 330. It was a low speed, towed, gyrocopter. You could probably extend the tail boom a little and make the system weight shift based with a greater rotor angle to handle the roll control and keep it stable.

[@xistsixt]

Wouldn't it be maybe favorable to have a slight v shape of the wings? From my understanding of how flying feels (paraglider) steering with weightshift only tends to work best on self stabilizing shapes ... I guess it would be helpful

[@toolscientist]

I'd make a DIY wind tunnel and test various designs. You should be able to make it naturally stable with front canards that operate near stall. You might be able to have altitude stability by having the front wings higher than the rear wings so that they leave ground effect earlier.

[@niconico3907]

If he make the front canard smaller it will get out of the ground effect earlier because ground effect height limit is proportionnal to the wing span.

[@TheCivilizedAnimal]

Awesome project to build but only took me 5 seconds to wonder how someone can be so talented and intelligent to build something like this and yet your center of gravity was so high 😮🧐😅

[@sharisamellor4012]

What!!! That fall was insane. I'm so glad you walked away from that! The ekranoplan looked sick on the water 🤩

[@andyspark5192]

How about not using the external force to pull, but having your own? Put engines underneath it, similar to the NAVY Ghost stealth attack boat. Maybe even one engine would be enough. The hovering-angle and steering will be done with shifting of the body.

[@bowenbrown]

Great vid!

[@richarddevaottien7724]

Clearly an hexagonal Sun Simulator in the sky with it's unnatural blue-white hue

[@hinz1]

Perhaps T-tail with elevator and rudder and perhaps ailerons as well? Weight shift control doesn't seem to work, especially if the plane is already in weird positions.

[@philsmith5705]

Way to go man, got it flying, very cool. Been waiting forever, and worth the wait.

[@CodeLeeCarter]

Adjustable flaps would be an awesome addition to the craft, Towed behind a boat.

[@FilosophicalPharmer]

EKRANOPLANICON 2022!! 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 Excellent work! Seeing Daniel coming down from his adrenaline high made me think of all the summers at the end of a tow rope. 😅😊 Great Stuff!

[@someotherdude]

I'm tempted to make a Skillshare Decision-making joke, but won't, because you really, truly could have been seriously injured or even killed there! Glad you're ok, love your videos.

[@PeetPeeet]

Now that’s aviating! Bravo, hope you’re not too sore. Ouch. Peel Z-1 Gliderboat is worth a look if working on a Mk II design

[@anesthetized7053]

man that was intense. on the bright side, it made for an epic thumbnail / title. so theres that xD you earned my sub from this short 2 video series and i cant wait to see whats next!

[@ranchero50]

Beautiful results. I do wonder if it would work better with a slack line attached to the top by the handle. As it pitched up would that limit or balance the angle of attack?

[@KasperLidegaard]

Nice project and great to see Daniel!!

[@rohansully584]

Love it!, and glad the fall didn't hurt you too much.

[@lundebc]

Wow, glad you are okay. Good video too. Not every effort is a fantastic success, happy to see the experiments continued.

[@divarachelenvy]

you are on the right track hey, keep up the great work...

[@mikhailmylitsa6087]

Cool project. Looks like it tail heavy. I think you should shift the place where you standing to nose.

[@pdtech4524]

Incredible! Very daring but looks super fun.👍

[@HEMIdouglas]

Retired Engineering technologist: Taking clues from Airfish 8, A high rear wing should be large enough to bring the nose down. Front wings should stall when an increased angle of attack happens so they lose lift leaving Ground effect.. Twin vertical rudders will control direction and provide a tunnel to focus wind from a pusher propeller. Observe engine torque. Decide airspeed. Relate the center of lift for wings and the central balance of all weight. They should be close. Put some skis on wing ends to prevent submersion in flight. Wings will then automatically maintain constant height above ground or water.

[@petegarnett7731]

That was a rather generous interpretation of ground effect!

[@DiamondBackDivision]

Awesome! What if you raised the tow rope attachment point?

[@isaactuuri6488]

this is awesome, great work to all!

[@kajdehoop]

Amazing channel! I see some similarities with winch-launching a glider. Maybe that can provide some good inspiration for safety features here. For example the release hook is always tested under tension before the first flight of the day. The pilot always has control over the cable release and it's his responsibility to decide if he should release if something goes wrong. The cable is also connected with a link that breaks if there's a certain minimum amount of force pulling on it. It's basically a piece of metal that snaps at a predetermined amount of newtons. It's also very important that you're always able to bring the nose down, as the aircraft might enter into a stall or spin at low altitude if the angle of attack is too high like we see in the video.

[@johnfrian]

Wow, quite the fall there, and a sick video. Glad it went well!

[@mikedickinson9730]

Lake Perris!!! I live just down the freeway…

[@fonwoolridge]

Epic vid! Glad you're OK!

[@linecraftman3907]

Really glad you made it out ok! Made for a great KZbin video but sure as hell gonna hurt for some time!

[@JustCuzRobotics]

In college I built a trebuchet to launch mini pumpkins and we tried using that exact same style of quick release for the trigger. It failed exactly like yours did. The hook swings open but the loop of string would get caught on the expanded eyelet that the release pin fit through causing it to catch and fail to fully release

[@bigmuz_pilot]

I am glad you're ok, but man that was awesome :)

[@peacefulscrimp5183]

Absolutely epic, mad lad , test flight pilot, crazy person ❗❗❗😜

[@SPotter1973]

At least You started early, giving you the time to work it out.

[@ericcochrane7379]

Haha that's gotta be one of the best moments ever captured in FPV

[@giantoak4742]

Glad you weren't hurt. Wild stuff.

[@DktheWelder]

Wow that is super cool, can’t believe how high you got !

[@skipstalforce]

Ever consider adding spoilers to the front wing? you could use a bike break handle to move it up and have springs to pull it down.

[@CactusJackSlade]

Awesome effort and great footage! I guess my first question as an aircraft designer, sailor and pilot is: Why are you using weight shift for control instead of control surfaces like on your r/c drone? Great project, good luck in future flights!

[@BrilliantDesignOnline]

Weight shift is perfectly reasonable, just needs to adapt the canard configuration so front wing stalls first. Parallel bars will allow more weight shift also.

[@RetirementFund750]

“He told me his family’s not the suing type”😂 that’s what they all say until you get the letter in the mail from their lawyer😅😂

[@TitanTubs]

This is crazy cool.

[@Helicopterpilot16]

Small control surface on the front wing, perhaps controlled by a lever? I was waiting to see how this worked out!

[@thinkflight]

Defeats the 'simple' approach.

[@Jokl92]

Those last words by Daniel got me really excited 🤩

[@slickfast]

This is SO cool to see, wish I was there!

[@rickyrodriguez5744]

LAKE PERRIS CALIFORNIA. Wow, I’m surprised they let you fly there.

[@nagjrcjasonbower]

Nice! A fast moving trim tab on the “tail” should do the trick... I’m a commercially licensed pilot (fyi) and I wish I could be there! Have fun bro!!!

[@flyingmonkey3822]

So, my contribution is that I’m working on a front hydrofoil that would push the nose up on take off… and if it pitches too far up will fight it until it lifts out of the water in which case half of the forward lift will be lost and it will surface pierce the hydrofoil again. This is all too much for a manual adjustment system so I’m learning electronics to make the control system.

[@TROUROCKS]

par thrust is a must . im testing a full size 58 inch prop par thrust ..using a small car front wheel steering knuckle hub and CV joint .. 8FT. long shaft to a 503 mounted at CG

[@3000gtwelder]

So moral of the story, do not use Skill Share for your decision making skills haha!

[@JoeOvercoat]

😳😀😄😂🤣😂🤣🤣😉

[@TheRoulette77]

i feel like i would want a joystick... so rad bro !

[@captarmour]

Wow great video! The wide Bixel and swept wing designs seem to have little to no pressure shift in and out of ground effect compared to the tandem an other designs

[@canofanger]

If it noses in, is there some sort of safety feature so you don't injure yourself on those handles? Like perhaps a breakaway feature?

[@bgulari]

No trigger shackle is 100% when releasing under load but I would used a tylaska T5. They are at least designed to be released under load

[@JoeOvercoat]

yah their choice of shackle was simplistic.

[@Jacob-od5yo]

Ngl the shot from the drone when you splash down looks sick lick an underwater charge blew up and it just shrugs it off

[@bradyboy123]

Hey mate have you seen the mantaray tubes? I have one and you change the ride from how it’s hooked up which I think could be your problem here, I suggest making multiple tow points you can attach to and experiment again!

[@highonahill]

May want to consider adding a primary release onboard, and keep the one on the tow boat as a backup.

[@zacharysmith7872]

Adjustable tow point on the front of the plan is needed. It’s effectively a control.

[@jamesoneill1945]

Well done facing your fears! What an exciting day. Sorry you got hurt. Rock on.

[@SteelDogFab]

Would love to see you design one that you sit in, with control surfaces!

[@Andreas-gh6is]

That went better than I thought it would.

[@CraftedChannel]

Positive angle of attack on back wing (looka lie relative to front) means it stalls first resulting in a pitch up. It's backwards. You want the front to stall to first just exactly like a canard which is essentially what this aircraft is.

[@zxggwrt]

Props for getting the outboard running

[@skydive1424]

The thing is unstable in pitch. The tip vortices and to some extent the downwash from the front wing drive down the aft wing once the front wing produces lift. Increasing the span of the aft wing will probably help with a bit of dihedral

[@evilpandakillabzonattkoccu4879]

Your crew is awesome.... I mean, I'd prefer a bit more shock and "OMG, Are you OK!?!?"s from a team, but maybe not? They seemed very cool under pressure. .....that looked like a potentially dangerous fall!

[@maarten_notjustagrip]

Man! This toy could be so much fun if you get it stable. I think a little dihedral will help a lot.

[@jdrosner1]

I recognize Lake Perris in Southern Cal. It has a fault line under the dam that limits the lake level.

[@hprfire]

I wonder if you did a canard design so that the front wing stalls before the back wing you might be able to avoid the quick jump into kite mode.

[@amazingdiyprojects]

Thank you for sharing your adventure and that you are still in one piece (-ish...) 🙂

[@ViciousGz]

Wow that back slam looked brutal hope your alright!

[@KevinBein]

As someone who grew up being towed behind a boat on all kinds of contraptions, why not just give the pilot a ski handle, maybe even a simple hook on the ekranoplan to hook the handle into. That way they can be in full control of when they get released if something starts to go sideways. Or if nothing else at least put the release on the ekranoplan so they can be in control of it. The person flying is going to be able to tell when they get into an unrecoverable situation way faster than someone observing from the boat.

[@rowannadon7668]

Damn that was pretty sick haha

[@toasteddingus6925]

Holy shieeeeeeeeet that was crazy. I fell off a windsail I was holding on to about twenty to thirty feet of the ground going about 35mph on the boat and it hurt so bad knocked the wind out of me almost drowned etc .. cheers mate good o ya for being alive

[@RevUnstableBoy]

how about a linkage going to a water "wing" (for better term) when the wing is in the water. a elevator is trimmed to give up trim on the front wing. as the front raises out of the water, the wing on the lever will drop, and the linkage can decrease the lift on the front. the hard part would be tuning it so that you do not get big oscillations. kind of like a manual form of the sonar on the RC ekranoplan

[@khallingstad]

Definitly want to see it with par thrust 😁

[@rajaagakhan5599]

Wow !! that was fun

[@pctrashtalk2069]

On a canard aircraft the forward canard wing is generally smaller and more highly loaded so that it stalls first and is almost stall proof.