DARPA launches a new interesting project — the Liberty Lifter, the GEV https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-05-18 . Does that mean that there"s a future for GEVs in XXI century? Lets see.
We can admit that USSR was once a leader in GEVs technology — not for long. Think about Orlyonok, Lun clasd rocket ships and yeah — the Caspian Sea Monster. But why Soviets needed all these first of all? As experts aren"t as optimistic as Soviet military, they are pointing on the limited operating capabilities of the vehicle — above the sea or the absolutely flat terrain (where can we spot such a one?), harsh working conditions in a primary operation scenario of flying over a salty sea, and the most important one — not tolerating any of the more or less serious sea waves.
Even at the small ripples there"s a wave effect the vehicle can"t ignore, there are the special control and compensation measures needed — and the large waves would destroy a vehicle completely. These additional control and the construction durability requirements were proven by the crash of the smaller Orlyonok and the following crash of the Sea Monster.
So what is a scenario for using such a problematic vehicle at all, what is its primary purpose? Lets look on the map. Imagine that you are a Soviet general, think like them. Don"t over-complicate the things, their way of thinking was very primitive. The Sea monster was tested for 14 years on the shallow Caspian Sea that doesn"t have any high waves — where do you think it was planned to be used? Yeah what country lies on the other bank of the Caspian Sea? Iran? Wait, but Iran and USSR are friends?
Well, there is a specific meaning of the word "friend" for the USSR and the modern Russia. A friend for USSR and Russia is a country that you know well, that is very well mapped and infiltrated with your agents. An ally is a country where you place your military forces, "temporarily", "just for the joined trainings". Its a country that is so easy to occupy and annex. Think about Russian occupation of Hungary in 1968, Moldova in 1990, Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine on 2014 and 2022. That"s what Russia calls "friends".
So hello, ayatollah. You were lucky that USSR collapsed — in other case you"d see a full might of a Russian friendship. Of course the descent and occupation of Iran wasn"t the ultimate goal — it was the full occupation and control of the Middle East. On the east, this first stage of tge Red Crusade would stop only on the bank of the Indian Ocean — that"s where the "Our conscripts will wash their boots in the Indian Ocean" Russian propagandistic phrase comes from. India is a friend? Too bad for India.
And — yeah, buckle up, the Red Crusade goes on. The Eastern Asian border is secured with China that is an ally and a friend (for now). After swallowing Iran and India, the Red Monster turns around and sees the whole African continent. Egypt is a friend (again, for now), Israel is backed by States too much so lets forget about it for now, but there are a lot of other African states that are easier to capture and whose people can be used as a Soviet conscripts in the World War III. Do you want to see how the Caspian Monster descent ship runs over a flat desert terrain? Do you think that smaller local armies and smaller militia could stop the regular Soviet army?
At the current state of Russian technology, and the arms industries in particular, they can never build such huge descent/rocket GEVs again. Of course they do some propagandistic steps such as transporting the last corpse of the last Lun class rocket carrier GEV into a military museum. And they tell about the "new descent GEVs" that are designed now. So if we didn"t knew about the sorry state of technology in Russia, we could worry. Yeah nice try Russia but no way. Neither your scientists nor your engineers or military are rivals to DARPA anymore, and would never be. Iran an India, you can relax. The Caspian Monster is dead, the same as its creators. And the modern Russia is a walking zombie — still a formidable threat to its smaller neighbors like Ukraine but no more for the whole Middle East region.
We can forget about the Sea Monster, this is how the remaining Soviet/Russian GEVs are looking like (see the Wikipedia photo here https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7d/Beriev_VVA-14_in_2010.jpg/800px-Beriev_VVA-14_in_2010.jpg ). Alexeyev"s design bureau is dead and buried — and it was done long ago at Soviet time. They all fell victims to the Soviet regime of corruption, ignorance and genocide — even for its own military engineers. And — no matter how cruel it sounds — this is for good, in this particular case. These designs were never alive, these were dead from the very beginning — that"s why these didn"t outlive Alexeyev. The "civil ekranoplanes" remnants doesn"t count — these were always the snuffy ducklings, the poor adopted children of the military machine.
Don"t think about Alexeyev as an innovator. His designs were technically interesting but highly derived from Lippisch. These were ultimately the Soviet military thing. The low durability descent vehicles with the load bearing fuselage. Operating in the severe environment but highly corrosion prone. Disposable. Made solely for war. And the Soviet type of war — mass descends, enormous losses, disposable vehicles, disposable conscripts, disposable armies.
Think about Lippisch"s X-114, DARPA"s early Aerocon Dash tests and Burt Rutan"s 372-3. Are the current DARPA"s ones a returning of a dreamer, the mighty and the fearful?
These designs are alive. Despite for now these may be needed for the war — unfortunately — this will be a new type of war. The crash of dictator regimes. The liberation. No more disposable soldiers.
And after that — who knows — possibly GEVs will have a bright future in the civil aviation. Lippisch and uncle Burt will be happy I think.
