In the Year 2000: Gargantuan, Trans-Oceanic Ground Effect Wingship
I had already planned on talking about “ground effect” vehicles at some point, when Avi Abrams dropped this doozy—a gorgeous painting of an unlikely Soviet hydroplane that looks like a water-skiing oil derrick—on our new “In the Year 2000” Flickr group. (A Boing Boing Gadgets and Paleo-Future Production.) Then that picture was linked back to this comprehensive post on Dark Roasted Blend about ground effect vehicles, where I saw this prototype painting that first appeared in Popular Science in 1984.
Something about seeing the American Airlines livery on a massive, ocean-gliding, swept-wing Spruce Goose-a-like just tickles me. Do want.
