Some technologies look wonderful on paper but don't quite make it in the big, bad world. Airships. Autogyros. Hovercraft. They all work. They even have niche applications. But they have never lived up to their promise and been widely adopted. So it is with ground-effect vehicles-aircraft-like machines which skim a few metres above the sea by acquiring part of their lift from aerodynamic interaction with the surface beneath. This means they use less fuel than a true aircraft while travelling faster than a ship. Many attempts have been made to build them. Boeing tried in the 1990s, with the Pelican Ultra Large Transport Aircraft. The Soviet Union tried with the Ekrano-plan, whose prototypes now moulder in the naval base at Kaspiysk. Two German engineers even attempted to construct what was, in essence, a ground-effect aquatic sports car. All failed-or, rather, failed to make something that was better than established alternatives. But hope springs eternal, and the Wing Ship Technology Corporation, a South Korean company, is trying to revive the idea. The country's armed forces have already agreed to buy some and the firm says it hopes to announce its first commercial sales (to an oil-and-gas firm and a Mediterranean ferry company) shortly.
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