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What vehicles have the highest ground clearance and are superior vehicles?

Aerospace and Aeronautical Engineering: Why aren't ground effect vehicles more popular?

  • Ground effect vehicles are faster than ships and seem more energy efficient than planes.  Why aren't they used for passenger or freight transportation?

  • Answer:

    The critical issue for ground effect vehicles that fly over water is known as the rogue wave.  You can think of water waves as the superposition of many modes, having different angles, amplitudes, and frequencies.  These modes can randomly superpose into an infrequent localized wave having a very high amplitude.  It is not easily doable to predict when such "rogue wave" events will occur, and the consequences for a ground effect vehicle would be total destruction. The prediction of a rogue wave event would require knowledge of wave height over a wide region for a long period of time.  This is the Achille's heel of ground effect vehicles.

Ri We at Quora Visit the source

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Ri, But is this the only reason? With the ocean data and we can get the max wave height as we use the data for ship designs, cant we design GEV to have clearance above that height? As far as I understand, I think its ignored or there is lack of data on this type of vehicles. The empirical data is missing. its hard to believe we are not trying to do expirements as this offers significant advantages

Rajeev Rey

Buildings and ships pre-date airplanes and are already in that space. Flying low and fast creates a lot of obstacle risks, both man made and nature made (ever see a bird strike on a plane?). You are correct in that ground effect vehicles have some advantages but the risk / reward trade-off does not work for them at present.

Thomas Scott

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