The aircraft of the engineer Lev Shchukin EKIP, which is sometimes also called the Russian flying saucer, could carry our country to such a distance of technical and economic capabilities that it is simply breathtaking. But the outstanding creation of the brilliant inventor had too many obstacles on the way to heaven …
Soviet scientists are known to have been maximalists. At the same time, they could work on projects that, at first glance, have no similarities. A rocket, an all-terrain vehicle, a "saucer" - Soviet and Russian aircraft designer Lev Nikolaevich Shchukin worked on the creation of such machines at different times.
In the shadow of Korolev
He was born in 1932 in Moscow, grew up in the Moscow region, where his family moved, studied there and after school knew exactly who he would be by profession. Entering the Moscow Aviation Institute at the Faculty of Aircraft Engines, young Lev Shchukin passed 12 exams as an external student and was admitted immediately to the third year! After graduating from this university, he also graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University. Is it any wonder that a promising young scientist was invited to work at the Central Design Bureau for EM of the space industry?
Here Shchukin took part in the development of a super-heavy rocket, which was intended to be launched to the moon. However, after the death of the project manager Sergei Korolev, in connection with a change in leadership, conflicts began in the team. Shchukin left the space industry and transferred to VNIIPI Transprogress. Here he radically changed the direction of work and instead of rocket technology, he took up the development of a hovercraft. In fact, it was an all-terrain vehicle designed for transporting cargo in the Far North.
However, the symbiosis of previous knowledge and newly acquired experience unexpectedly led the aircraft designer to the development of a fundamentally new aircraft in the early 80s of the last century, which he called EKIP (an abbreviation meaning "ecology and progress").
Shchukin's brainchild looked very futuristic, it was not for nothing that he was nicknamed the flying saucer. However, the device resembled an alien vessel very remotely. Yes, it had a disc-shaped image, but at the same time it also had small wings, structurally connected to the fuselage.
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Thus, the problem of air flow of the aircraft was solved. And also an ingenious designer developed a device for neutralizing transverse vortices: they were simply sucked into the wing by special fans, which reduced the negative effect. Thanks to these innovations, his invention was able to smoothly take off and land. Structurally, EKIP belonged to the "flying wing" aircraft with all their advantages. That is, he could fly in the sky like an airplane and hover almost above the ground, like an ekranoplan.
And he also had one very valuable quality - "no aerodrome". The EKIP chassis was not provided at all - its role was played by an air cushion, which made it possible to take off and land from any horizontal surface not exceeding 600 meters in length. Thus, the device could do without many elements of the expensive airfield infrastructure.
Who needs it?
Shchukin's development had several modifications, including unmanned ones. Manned passenger samples weighing from 12 to 360 tons were intended to carry from 2 people to 1200 people. Transport options were lifted and transported from 4 to 120 tons. The speed reached 700 kilometers per hour, the range was up to 6000, the flight altitude was ~ 3 meters in ekranoplan mode to 11 kilometers in airplane mode.
An important point - EKIP engines could operate not only on kerosene or a special economical water-gasoline mixture, but also on environmentally friendly hydrogen. So "ecology" in its name was not just a word.
The original device made it possible to place fuel tanks of various capacities in the apparatus, depending on the required flight range. In addition, the presence of several engines of various types excluded the possibility of failure of all at the same time, and an emergency landing could be made even with one running engine. The designer thoroughly worked out the issues of safe operation of his brainchild.
The Shchukin apparatus could have many modifications suitable for both military and civilian use.
The smallest ones could be used … as personal transport! With mass production, their cost would be comparable to the price of a prestigious foreign car.
But large aircraft would seriously compete with conventional aircraft, both for military and civilian operators. So, the Ministry of Defense could be interested in EKIP options in anti-submarine, patrol and landing options. The combat version of Shchukin's flying saucer was also considered. It seems that the Ministry of Emergency Situations would not refuse such devices, which combine the best qualities of aircraft and helicopters and would be indispensable for extinguishing fires, as well as for delivering rescuers to places of natural and man-made disasters. On the basis of EKIP it would be possible to deploy a very efficient and demanded airmobile hospital.
Moreover, Shchukin's inventions could also squeeze out such an advantageous form of transport as water transport when using his devices in the mode of ekranoplanes. Let them be inferior to large ships in carrying capacity, but they would be many times faster than them.
On the whole, the EKIP's unpretentiousness to the locations of their base made them very convenient to operate and significantly expanded the list of potential consumers.
How-know?
Unfortunately, the great invention of the talented aircraft designer was not destined to see the sky. More precisely, only a 120-kilogram EKIP model was put on the wing in 1994. His flight was successful. But then there was no money for the future equipment embodied in metal.
True, one and a half billion rubles were allocated by the decision of the Russian government in 1993, but until these funds reached the developers, they depreciated several times. Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov showed interest in the invention, but Lev Shchukin did not receive serious financial support for the serial production of his apparatus. The inventor spent some of the work spending his own funds. In 2001, he died of a heart attack …
His colleagues continued to work, trying to breathe life into the Shchukin project, attracting foreign investors. The United States showed some interest, and even negotiated work was carried out. However, the Americans were interested in setting up the production of EKIP at home, and the Russian side insisted on financing the parallel production of devices in our country. Overseas investors were not satisfied with this option, and the contract did not materialize.
Currently, work on the creation of EKIP has been stopped and its further fate is in question. Over the past decades, a revolutionary design for the 90s of the XX century has ceased to arouse the previous keen interest of interested parties.
Moreover, aircraft-building concerns and airlines with their huge infrastructure are not very interested in the implementation of this project. Why do they need such a serious competitor?
Nazi success
The device, which structurally resembles a flying saucer, has been trying to create for many years.
According to one version, the Nazis achieved great success. Thus, in the second half of the 1950s, the Lehmann publishing house (Munich) published the book The Secret Weapon of the Third Reich, written by Major Rudolf Luzar. The book contained drawings of various types of disc-shaped aircraft, including a photograph of the Bellonze disk, the Schriever-Habermole disk. It was argued that, allegedly in the first test flight, the device reached an altitude of 12,400 meters and a speed of 2,000 kilometers per hour.
Oleg TARASOV