This will not primarily be for rescue ops. This will be for supporting Marine standin operations on and within the first island chain. The marines have been trying to figure out how they can handle sustainment and logistics in that environment.
With a few hundred miles range, these craft would be suitable as one way island to island hoppers, or 2 way over the horizon ship to shore transports. For a sense of scale, its ~140 miles from Luzon to Scarborough Shoal (one of the contested islands in the South China Sea).
The "Viceroy" craft that Regent has mocked up on their website claims 180 mile range, 3500lb of cargo / 2 crew + 12 passengers.
EDIT: And to be clear, the article title says "to get", but the article makes clear, this is basically a testing and development contract. There's no certainty that the Marines will get this capability in any meaningful way. Probably better to replace with "to test". This is particularly important because the commercial version of this craft is also still in development and testing.
It seems like combat SAR in the maritime environment is what these are best at.
> The "Viceroy" craft that Regent has mocked up on their website claims 180 mile range, 3500lb of cargo / 2 crew + 12 passengers.
This is like 1/4th the size needed for minimum scale sustainment and support. Not to say that it won't be used for that in a pinch or for special operations, but it's pretty limited. Of course, there's been talk about building huge ones.
The company press release states "The second phase of work will examine seaglider capabilities across missions including contested logistics and medevac/casevac".
I agree that this would be useful for medevac/casevac, but I'm less sure about the search part of SAR. 180 miles is not a lot of range for searching.
I still believe this is primarily about contested logistics, because the USMC still hasn't solved that issue. One of the stand in force concept's biggest weakness right now is how will the marines go about sustaining the force. There's a lot of good ideas written down, but concretely they still don't have good solutions.
I think it's fairly clear that the Marines will look to unnamed undersea vehicles as one vector, but I think they're looking for flexibility and redundancy (and certainly the speed that these guys offer would be interesting).
What's written about SIFs is that the Marines anticipate the majority of SIFs to be deployed in the crisis building phase. They do not envision on day one of a shooting war, somehow dispersing all of their forces across the first island chain - they take for granted that they will somehow do that in the build up. After that, then ya, maybe just med/casevac and resupply is what they're after.
I have a hard time finding concrete examples, but I always envisioned an example detachment being roughly platoon sized. Basically, imagine being able to man a NMESIS launcher or two, ISR, and a squad or two of infantry for security. I think at that point, these vehicles become more viable for certain types of sustainment. You could for example priority rush more NSMs to a detachment.
> I think at that point, these vehicles become more viable for certain types of sustainment. You could for example priority rush more NSMs to a detachment.
Sure-- like 3 per trip. If they're not too long for the vehicle (they might be).
You might be able to barely sustain a platoon-sized force with a trip per day, but this seems very marginal.
The article never mentioned the search part of SAR, only the rescue part. The range is still something of an issue with that, though, as you'd need to be fairly close the people needing rescuing. So I still agree that contested rescue is likely a side mission for this.
> How long did it take it for the Osprey to make it into service?
I was curious so I went and looked;
1981 - Initial development contract awarded
1983 - Bell/Boeing submitted their prototype and since it was the only submission, they were awarded the contract
1985 - Osprey designation established, first full size prototypes under development
1988 - First Osprey was finished
1989 - First testing of the prototypes started and first flight in helicopter mode (several of the prototypes crashed)
1994 - Bell/Boeing received production contract for EMD phase
1997 - First EMD flight + more testing
2005 - Full rate production authorized
2007 - Marines began fielding them
They were still testing the various modes (carrier onboard deliveries, etc) into the 2020s but the most favorable case is that it took over 25 years from prototype to service.
COD wasn't "testing various modes." It was a completely new requirement to replace Navy C-2s which were reaching end of life. It wasn't part of the original contract; it was a completely new "oh, we have this on the shelf and it's fit enough for purpose."
Worth noting that the Cold War ended in the middle of the Osprey's development, and the peace dividend really stretched out the timeline for a lot of programs of that era. With higher consistent funding like we're seeing now, stuff will probably be adopted faster
These are nothing like the Osprey. The Osprey is way more complex. If one of the engines goes out on the Osprey, there is linkage that will allow the remaining engine to continue to power both rotors. Nevermind the mission profiles are completely different.
How long did the SR-71 take to make it into service? How long did the F-22 or F-35 take? None of those answers have anything to do with the other.
Eh, yes and no. They tend to have a pretty strong relationship to each other. But we've all been party to swiss army knife projects that get shit all over by stakeholders because they don't agree about what the right balance of "shitty at everything" ought to be.
My father was a Marine in the late 80's, early 90's and would talk about the Osprey being in development. They were still in development 20 years later when I was a Marine. I did get to fly in one before getting out though.
It will have many of the same issues too, common to all ground-effect sea planes, namely that wave height, rogue waves, weather conditions, and the ability of pilots to remain highly focused will be major limiting factors.
From the wiki I take it they have yet to build and fly a full-sized prototype
"A 1/4 scale model was successfully demonstrated in 2022 in Narragansett Bay"[1]
Also I assume radar-proof is just because it's a ground effect vehicle that will never fly high enough to show up on radar it certainly doesn't look all angular like a stealth bomber. In which case my bicycle is also radar-proof?
> Also I assume radar-proof is just because it's a ground effect vehicle that will never fly high enough to show up on radar it certainly doesn't look all angular like a stealth bomber. In which case my bicycle is also radar-proof?
From the way the article is worded, it does seem the author is only considering air search radar with this claim. Without low observability features, this will show up on surface search and surveillance radars. There might be an initial period where some radars fail to register it because they reject it as a possible target due to its kinematics. If craft like this become common, though, the signal processing algorithms will be updated to handle them. Most can already deal with very low-flying helicopters anyway.
That said, just because it isn't angular doesn't mean it doesn't have low observability features. Radar absorbing material would still make it harder to detect. So would more subtle elements of the physical design. I don't think "radar-proof" in that section header is justified, though.
Even on airborne radars like AWACS, they can detect ground movement. They typically have a filter to ignore things under certain speeds as they are not typically concerned about traffic near highway speeds. However, the proposed speeds for this thing would still show up with those filters enabled. It would be interesting to see what minimum speeds would be.
Yes, AWACS has limited moving target indicator (MTI) capability. A full-featured maritime MTI radar would easily pick this up, provided the signal processing algorithms don't reject the track for moving too fast.
Thanks for sharing, I honestly wish this company the best electric planes are a hard problem to solve and it's good to see anyone making an honest effort.
However to poke just a little fun this line stands out as a hilarious marketing claim that cannot possibly be true
"Almost all (98%) of UAE coastal residents are interested in riding a seaglider, according to our global consumer survey."
It's also interesting to note that the CEO has appeared on no fewer than 13 different podcasts between mid-2022 and last week which is I suppose how one would go about getting a high value US defence contract these days.
> Also I assume radar-proof is just because it's a ground effect vehicle that will never fly high enough to show up on radar
My guess is yes. Simply because the Caspian Sea Monster [1] was "the largest and heaviest aircraft in the world from 1966 to 1988", not at all stealthy looking, and simultaneously also "undetectable to many radar systems, as it flew below the minimum altitude of detection."
So yes, a much smaller craft will also be hard to radar. Notwithstanding that the tech has moved on at both the "detect" and "don't be detected" ends of the contest.
As I understand it, it's also easier and safer to fly these craft now, as they are computer-stabilised, which the 1960s design could not have been. And therefore easier and safer to fly them lower. (The Caspian Sea Monster "was destroyed following a crash caused by pilot error." )
I wonder why the title clarifies "for rescue ops".
Is there anything inherent to this technology that prevents it from being used for anything else? The article body insists on "demonstrations relevant to specific defense operations" which sounds quite broad and not limited to rescue ops in any way.
TBF, You never know when you might need to sneak up on a shoreside compound, go in and “rescue” a bunch of people from their beds, and get back out undetected.
Fast and water based I can sort of see, but there's no point to it avoiding radar. The range of 180 miles (assuming I read that correctly) also makes it pretty pointless for search and rescue. You would have to know where someone is, the weather must be good enough to land on water, and they can't be more than 60 miles away.
A NH90 helicopter is faster, at 190mph (300km/h) and have longer range at 500 miles (800km). It also doesn't have to land to rescue someone.
As other commenters have pointed out, search and rescue doesn't mean you're not going to get shot at. I agree with everyone else though that it's obviously going to be used for more than SAR.
Ground effect vehicles could be the thing that's needed to make drone based delivery a reasonable thing to do, especially around lakes. It's one of life's perennial disappointments that such things only get done in military terms and under the ludicrous notion they are rescue vessels.
That's never going to happen. Only a tiny fraction of the population live directly on lakeshores, and basically no warehouses. If drone based delivery is going to work then they'll have to fly out of ground effect to avoid structures and trees.
The main advantage of ground effect vehicles is lower fuel consumption over long distances. That's not a priority for the short range battery powered drones used by delivery services.
My startup is working on playing soothing music on drones using differential timing of rotor speeds. We've made some impressive inroads in the past few years. We're planning on adding a model that also plays birdsong for exactly this use case in the next couple of years!
I suspect that in this case "seaglider" is just REGENT's marketing name, rather than a term with broader uptake. All the places I'm seeing the name 'seaglider' used in this context look like REGENT's prospective customers.
Sure, it seems to be this Regent that wants to make "seaglider" a thing.
You can understand why they don't use "ekranoplan" as the marketing term. Its going to only be familiar to those who are into Soviet History, Aviation trivia or specific Sci-Fi.
And it's not going to bring small, modern, electric craft to mind.
"Our vehicle, called a seaglider, is an all-electric, wing-in-ground-effect craft that operates within a wingspan of the water's surface and couples the speed of an airplane with the operating cost of a boat."
Ha, I love the "rescue ops".
This will not primarily be for rescue ops. This will be for supporting Marine standin operations on and within the first island chain. The marines have been trying to figure out how they can handle sustainment and logistics in that environment.
You can read some wonkish article about this (back in 2022) https://warontherocks.com/2022/09/sustainment-of-the-stand-i... . You'll note that the article does suggest revisiting seaplanes as a distribution option.
With a few hundred miles range, these craft would be suitable as one way island to island hoppers, or 2 way over the horizon ship to shore transports. For a sense of scale, its ~140 miles from Luzon to Scarborough Shoal (one of the contested islands in the South China Sea).
The "Viceroy" craft that Regent has mocked up on their website claims 180 mile range, 3500lb of cargo / 2 crew + 12 passengers.
EDIT: And to be clear, the article title says "to get", but the article makes clear, this is basically a testing and development contract. There's no certainty that the Marines will get this capability in any meaningful way. Probably better to replace with "to test". This is particularly important because the commercial version of this craft is also still in development and testing.
> Ha, I love the "rescue ops".
> This will not primarily be for rescue ops.
It's a common meme in dual use tech. When you apply for funding you mention "search and rescue applications" and people know what's up.
> This will not primarily be for rescue ops
It seems like combat SAR in the maritime environment is what these are best at.
> The "Viceroy" craft that Regent has mocked up on their website claims 180 mile range, 3500lb of cargo / 2 crew + 12 passengers.
This is like 1/4th the size needed for minimum scale sustainment and support. Not to say that it won't be used for that in a pinch or for special operations, but it's pretty limited. Of course, there's been talk about building huge ones.
The company press release states "The second phase of work will examine seaglider capabilities across missions including contested logistics and medevac/casevac".
I agree that this would be useful for medevac/casevac, but I'm less sure about the search part of SAR. 180 miles is not a lot of range for searching.
I still believe this is primarily about contested logistics, because the USMC still hasn't solved that issue. One of the stand in force concept's biggest weakness right now is how will the marines go about sustaining the force. There's a lot of good ideas written down, but concretely they still don't have good solutions.
I think it's fairly clear that the Marines will look to unnamed undersea vehicles as one vector, but I think they're looking for flexibility and redundancy (and certainly the speed that these guys offer would be interesting).
What's written about SIFs is that the Marines anticipate the majority of SIFs to be deployed in the crisis building phase. They do not envision on day one of a shooting war, somehow dispersing all of their forces across the first island chain - they take for granted that they will somehow do that in the build up. After that, then ya, maybe just med/casevac and resupply is what they're after.
I have a hard time finding concrete examples, but I always envisioned an example detachment being roughly platoon sized. Basically, imagine being able to man a NMESIS launcher or two, ISR, and a squad or two of infantry for security. I think at that point, these vehicles become more viable for certain types of sustainment. You could for example priority rush more NSMs to a detachment.
> I think at that point, these vehicles become more viable for certain types of sustainment. You could for example priority rush more NSMs to a detachment.
Sure-- like 3 per trip. If they're not too long for the vehicle (they might be).
You might be able to barely sustain a platoon-sized force with a trip per day, but this seems very marginal.
Pretty sure the search mission has been taken over by sats and drones for the most part
> but I'm less sure about the search part of SAR
The article never mentioned the search part of SAR, only the rescue part. The range is still something of an issue with that, though, as you'd need to be fairly close the people needing rescuing. So I still agree that contested rescue is likely a side mission for this.
Would be a cool life, you operate a converted PBY Catalina that is a cargo plane and you bum around ferrying stuff
A DC3 is probably more practical.
But certainly less romantic.
I hear there's a Philippine Mars not doing anything
It's a thing! https://www.instagram.com/thatmallardguy/
Oh man that's cool. It would be impractical but an S-38 would be cool too but I'm biased from The Aviator
Tales of the Gold Monkey / TaleSpin / that one season of Archer, has been the fantasy-life I wanted since I was very young.
I mean, I'm sure any real-world version of it would actually suck, though.
Yeah I need a bathroom connected to a plumbing system for ex
I laughed when I saw the article photo combined with the headline. The Marines will be island hopping in Higgins boats again before these are adopted.
How long did it take it for the Osprey to make it into service?
> How long did it take it for the Osprey to make it into service?
I was curious so I went and looked;
1981 - Initial development contract awarded
1983 - Bell/Boeing submitted their prototype and since it was the only submission, they were awarded the contract
1985 - Osprey designation established, first full size prototypes under development
1988 - First Osprey was finished
1989 - First testing of the prototypes started and first flight in helicopter mode (several of the prototypes crashed)
1994 - Bell/Boeing received production contract for EMD phase
1997 - First EMD flight + more testing
2005 - Full rate production authorized
2007 - Marines began fielding them
They were still testing the various modes (carrier onboard deliveries, etc) into the 2020s but the most favorable case is that it took over 25 years from prototype to service.
COD wasn't "testing various modes." It was a completely new requirement to replace Navy C-2s which were reaching end of life. It wasn't part of the original contract; it was a completely new "oh, we have this on the shelf and it's fit enough for purpose."
Yeah fair, I jumped to that since it was in the Wiki but through the 2010's there were a number of other options for development milestones.
Worth noting that the Cold War ended in the middle of the Osprey's development, and the peace dividend really stretched out the timeline for a lot of programs of that era. With higher consistent funding like we're seeing now, stuff will probably be adopted faster
These are nothing like the Osprey. The Osprey is way more complex. If one of the engines goes out on the Osprey, there is linkage that will allow the remaining engine to continue to power both rotors. Nevermind the mission profiles are completely different.
How long did the SR-71 take to make it into service? How long did the F-22 or F-35 take? None of those answers have anything to do with the other.
>How long did the SR-71 take to make it into service? How long did the F-22 or F-35 take?
>None of those answers have anything to do with the other.
There's a pretty direct correlation between number of stakeholders who need to not object and procurement time.
One trick pony spy plane go fast took no time at all.
F15 but stealth took years
F35 cluster fuck took decades.
The correlation you're looking for is number of requirements, not number of stakeholders. They can be related in joint programs but aren't always.
Eh, yes and no. They tend to have a pretty strong relationship to each other. But we've all been party to swiss army knife projects that get shit all over by stakeholders because they don't agree about what the right balance of "shitty at everything" ought to be.
My father was a Marine in the late 80's, early 90's and would talk about the Osprey being in development. They were still in development 20 years later when I was a Marine. I did get to fly in one before getting out though.
Reminds me of this:
https://theonion.com/soldier-excited-to-take-over-father-s-o...
> With a few hundred miles range
180 mile range, 180 knot speed, needs recharging infrastructure at both ends of the journey. This is a toy with very little operational utility.
> This will not primarily be for rescue ops.
The "radar-evading" rather gives the game away.
Radar evasion is very useful if you're rescuing someone from enemy/contested territory.
SAR assets can still be shot at. Opposed SAR is something the Navy and Marine Corps train to.
This is like the old Soviet Ekranoplans [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun-class_ekranoplan
It will have many of the same issues too, common to all ground-effect sea planes, namely that wave height, rogue waves, weather conditions, and the ability of pilots to remain highly focused will be major limiting factors.
I'm guessing modern sensors and fly-by-wire systems might at least handle the last part.
From the wiki I take it they have yet to build and fly a full-sized prototype
"A 1/4 scale model was successfully demonstrated in 2022 in Narragansett Bay"[1]
Also I assume radar-proof is just because it's a ground effect vehicle that will never fly high enough to show up on radar it certainly doesn't look all angular like a stealth bomber. In which case my bicycle is also radar-proof?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REGENT_Viceroy
> Also I assume radar-proof is just because it's a ground effect vehicle that will never fly high enough to show up on radar it certainly doesn't look all angular like a stealth bomber. In which case my bicycle is also radar-proof?
From the way the article is worded, it does seem the author is only considering air search radar with this claim. Without low observability features, this will show up on surface search and surveillance radars. There might be an initial period where some radars fail to register it because they reject it as a possible target due to its kinematics. If craft like this become common, though, the signal processing algorithms will be updated to handle them. Most can already deal with very low-flying helicopters anyway.
That said, just because it isn't angular doesn't mean it doesn't have low observability features. Radar absorbing material would still make it harder to detect. So would more subtle elements of the physical design. I don't think "radar-proof" in that section header is justified, though.
Even on airborne radars like AWACS, they can detect ground movement. They typically have a filter to ignore things under certain speeds as they are not typically concerned about traffic near highway speeds. However, the proposed speeds for this thing would still show up with those filters enabled. It would be interesting to see what minimum speeds would be.
Yes, AWACS has limited moving target indicator (MTI) capability. A full-featured maritime MTI radar would easily pick this up, provided the signal processing algorithms don't reject the track for moving too fast.
They just started testing a full scale prototype like at the start of March. https://www.regentcraft.com/news/regent-begins-sea-trials-of...
They've done boat mode tests, but they haven't flown yet.
Thanks for sharing, I honestly wish this company the best electric planes are a hard problem to solve and it's good to see anyone making an honest effort.
However to poke just a little fun this line stands out as a hilarious marketing claim that cannot possibly be true
"Almost all (98%) of UAE coastal residents are interested in riding a seaglider, according to our global consumer survey."
It's also interesting to note that the CEO has appeared on no fewer than 13 different podcasts between mid-2022 and last week which is I suppose how one would go about getting a high value US defence contract these days.
I’m imagining the aging defense contract awarders listening to the podcasts right now on the treadmill.
> Also I assume radar-proof is just because it's a ground effect vehicle that will never fly high enough to show up on radar
My guess is yes. Simply because the Caspian Sea Monster [1] was "the largest and heaviest aircraft in the world from 1966 to 1988", not at all stealthy looking, and simultaneously also "undetectable to many radar systems, as it flew below the minimum altitude of detection."
So yes, a much smaller craft will also be hard to radar. Notwithstanding that the tech has moved on at both the "detect" and "don't be detected" ends of the contest.
As I understand it, it's also easier and safer to fly these craft now, as they are computer-stabilised, which the 1960s design could not have been. And therefore easier and safer to fly them lower. (The Caspian Sea Monster "was destroyed following a crash caused by pilot error." )
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea_Monster
I wonder why the title clarifies "for rescue ops".
Is there anything inherent to this technology that prevents it from being used for anything else? The article body insists on "demonstrations relevant to specific defense operations" which sounds quite broad and not limited to rescue ops in any way.
It sounds less aggressive.
Sounds nice and friendly, just like all those autonomous drones for SAR
- Very fast - avoids radar/detection - water based
My first assumption is that this is for stealth ops. "Rescue" doesn't need those features.
TBF, You never know when you might need to sneak up on a shoreside compound, go in and “rescue” a bunch of people from their beds, and get back out undetected.
Congratulations, you are being rescued. Please do not resist.
Fast and water based I can sort of see, but there's no point to it avoiding radar. The range of 180 miles (assuming I read that correctly) also makes it pretty pointless for search and rescue. You would have to know where someone is, the weather must be good enough to land on water, and they can't be more than 60 miles away.
A NH90 helicopter is faster, at 190mph (300km/h) and have longer range at 500 miles (800km). It also doesn't have to land to rescue someone.
> but there's no point to it avoiding radar
As other commenters have pointed out, search and rescue doesn't mean you're not going to get shot at. I agree with everyone else though that it's obviously going to be used for more than SAR.
Stealth and rescue can go hand and hand, no? I guess stating “rescue” still may bury the lead in that case.
It's too low to do anything else. Snipers would decimate an entire attack squadron.
Ground effect vehicles could be the thing that's needed to make drone based delivery a reasonable thing to do, especially around lakes. It's one of life's perennial disappointments that such things only get done in military terms and under the ludicrous notion they are rescue vessels.
I think drone based delivery is a solved problem by now, thanks to the very rapid developments in the last 2 years ?
Some of the drones are now even fiber optic guided and thus resistant to jamming by the competition!
That's never going to happen. Only a tiny fraction of the population live directly on lakeshores, and basically no warehouses. If drone based delivery is going to work then they'll have to fly out of ground effect to avoid structures and trees.
The main advantage of ground effect vehicles is lower fuel consumption over long distances. That's not a priority for the short range battery powered drones used by delivery services.
>Only a tiny fraction of the population live directly on lakeshores,
I think you are mistaken sir.
I live by a lake myself and i've just talked to my neighbors, and they all live by a lake too.
My startup is working on playing soothing music on drones using differential timing of rotor speeds. We've made some impressive inroads in the past few years. We're planning on adding a model that also plays birdsong for exactly this use case in the next couple of years!
is this a ground effect machine?
"seaglider" is apparently a new word for ekranoplan. The difference is, the new ones tend not to be so enormous [1].
See e.g. https://www.regentcraft.com/seagliders/viceroy and https://www.hawaiiseaglider.org/what-is-a-seaglider
It's the same craft with a different paint job
Yes, they are Wing-in-Ground craft
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea_Monster
I suspect that in this case "seaglider" is just REGENT's marketing name, rather than a term with broader uptake. All the places I'm seeing the name 'seaglider' used in this context look like REGENT's prospective customers.
The term is also being used for some underwater drones (see https://apl.uw.edu/project/project.php?id=seaglider and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaglider).
Sure, it seems to be this Regent that wants to make "seaglider" a thing.
You can understand why they don't use "ekranoplan" as the marketing term. Its going to only be familiar to those who are into Soviet History, Aviation trivia or specific Sci-Fi.
And it's not going to bring small, modern, electric craft to mind.
One more litetal translation of "ekranoplan" is "screen glider", so sea glider isn't that far away from it.
"Our vehicle, called a seaglider, is an all-electric, wing-in-ground-effect craft that operates within a wingspan of the water's surface and couples the speed of an airplane with the operating cost of a boat."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXE0UTHnV5g
It is a ground effect vehicle.
$4.75mln seem like a great deal for a working prototype?
I'd love one of these in MS Flight Simulator or DCS.
Congratulations for having capabilities Russia has had for three decades.
Which are in active service today?
Regardless, the US beat Russia to that too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collins_X-112
oorah!
>high speed
these are prop aircraft.
>radar evading
except for that insane heat signature coming from the half dozen DC motors and the RF emissions from them.
>electric
unless teslas making it...probably not...
this sounds like a pork project...or PR fluff.
Because Tesla is the only company capable of making electric vehicles…?