The Institute of Aviation representatives participated in the 12th International Conference on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation (TransNav 2017) hosted by Gdynia Maritime University.
Krzysztof Szafran, Dr Habil. Eng. and Zbigniew Pągowski, Dr Eng. presented their paper „Efficient and Extremaly Fast Transport Including Search and Rescue Units Using Ground Effect” enriched with the ekranoplanes drawings by retired employee of the Institute of Aviation, Jacek Kończak, Dr Eng.
The paper presents the use of ekranoplanes as an extension of the EPATS project for this type of aircraft, in shipping as well as for rescue units, that can fulfill specific roles such as in the Arctic, oilfields, and salvage of migrants in the Mediterranean Sea and beyond. The paper was published by CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group in “Marine Navigation, Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation” (pages 305-310). For a few years now, more than a dozen scientific and research institutes have been interested in building a European project in this area, but the coordinator of the project has not been selected yet.
After the conference, the authors, met in St. Petersburg with a well-known specialist and author of many books devoted to ekranoplanes, prof. Alexander Niebylov, who prepared a project dedicated to the use of ekranoplanes as launch platforms for spaceships. Possibly, the inclusion of a specialist who has been an outstanding specialist in the field of ekranoplanes for 40 years and an active participant in European projects – prof. Niebylov – will give a new impetus for innovative ways of using the ekranoplanes.
