We’ve seen crazy yacht concepts indeed, some particularly the size of an island. But one that can fly? Well, the idea is crazy, but it’s not new. The picture you see above is a concept of a 118-foot flying yacht, but it’s not new. It’s just a beatified Ekranoplane, which is an aircraft-ship hybrid that can float like a sea vessel and fly a few meters over the water surface. Yes, just a few meters, not as high as a G6, so it’s still acceptable, but one that’s still very expensive to build.

Ekranoplanes were originally invented in Scandinavia, but it was Rostislav Alexeev—a Soviet engineer at the Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau—who perfected them and ultimately built flying monsters out of them.

These ship-aircraft hybrids were created to transport vast quantities of heavy war machines and soldiers at very high speed, using something called ground effect. As the ekranoplane increased speed, the ground effect lifts the ship up a few feet above the surface of the water.

The largest ekranoplane during those years was the “Caspian Sea Monster”, a 550-ton beast that could travel up to 66 feet over water, swooshing at an amazing 460 miles per hour—much faster than any regular sea vessel.

After the Soviet Union’s collapse, the large-scale military ekranoplanes were abandoned. However, other companies have been building small ekranoplanes—some capable of taking six people in.

A very beautiful concept yacht that looks like ‘Free Willy’. Now all it needs is a personal garage with a personal V12 supercar monster in it.

SOURCE via Bornrich