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It's a Wig . . .
It's a flying boat. It's an amphibian. It's a WIG. It's a...Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Familiar to Moscow showgoers but new here, the Beriev Be-2500 project is a 5.5 million pound monster, similar in size to the Boeing Pelican concept. The 511-foot-span flying wing carries 2.2 million pounds of cargo in its wing and body and would be powered by six 231,000-pounds-thrust NK-116 engines. As in the case of Russia's awesome and horribly impractical ekranoplan wing-in-ground effect (WIG) vehicles, four of the engines are mounted on a forward wing, blowing air under the delta wing and between the deep stabilizing hulls to help lift the monster off the water. The landing gear is large enough to let the Be-2500 land at an airport for maintenance and repair, but full-payload operations would require a seaport.
—Bill Sweetman
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