Airplanes that aren't Airplanes

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Pop quiz hotshot: what has wings, engines, and flies…but is not an airplane?

Tech startup Regent has the answer: a Seaglider.

What

Regent’s Seagliders are what’s known as wing-in-ground-effect (WIG) vehicles or ground effect vehicles (GEVs). We’ll call them WIGs cause it has a better ring to it.

WIGs take advantage of the invisible force that makes student pilots continually land long—a phenomenology that increases the efficiency of a lift-generating airfoil when it’s close to the surface.

The idea for WIGs dates back to the 1960s when the ~20% increased efficiency in ground effect was very appealing for rapidly transiting large swaths of water.

Since WIGs blur the lines between an airplane and a boat, the International Maritime Organization lumps them into three classes:

• Type A: a WIG that only operates in ground effect
• Type B: a WIG that can temporarily operate with very limited flight out of ground effect
• Type C: a WIG that can operate out of ground effect (i.e., fly)

Regent’s Seaglider is a Type A WIG, meaning it doesn’t fall under the FAA and doesn’t have a pilot or co-pilot—it falls under the Coast Guard and has a maritime captain and first mate.

Shower thought: If one of these gets stolen or hijacked, can we call the perpetrator a pirate?

Why

Regent’s eight-engined electric-powered Seagliders are targeting quiet, smooth transportation between coastal communities (the Hawaiian Islands, the Hamptons, etc.) with 12-passenger trips.

It’s targeting the 1-hour market, with a projected baseline of 160 knots (160 NM range for those who don’t know what a knot is). That’s slower than an H-60 but faster than most commercial helicopters.

Bonus Geek stuff: Regent’s Seagliders are the only WIGs developed to date that is using a hydrofoil. Unlike a flat hull required to get on plane (on top of the water) at speed, a hydrofoil permits the use of a deep-V hull so it can 1) work in various sea conditions and 2) make “takeoffs and landings” smooth.

So What

This isn’t a PowerPoint project—Regent already has 200 pre-orders for its 12-passenger Seaglider, and is already looking at 50-passenger and 100-passenger variants.

Why you’re reading about this in a defense newsletter: The Marine Corps Warfighting Lab is interested in the militarization of this tech in FY23 as part of an Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD).

Seagliders could provide a disruptive new way to move Marines and supplies between distributed locations—think runway independent, below the radar horizon, high-speed transport in the Pacific.

This jives with the service’s push into Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EBAO, aka 21st century island-hopping).

What Now

Regent has a 1/4 scale prototype in operation now, with plans to complete a full-scale prototype next year, testing in 2024, and deliveries beginning in late 2025. That’s wicked fast.

You won’t find a Seaglider at an airshow, but you can find it at a boat show.

In fact, you can catch Regent's 1/4 scale prototype demoing its high-speed active hydrofoil next month at Newport International Boat Show.

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Switzerland is having internal drama over its decision to buy 36 F-35As. An alliance to stop the F-35 purchase has gathered enough signatures to force a vote (a feature of the Swiss government). ICYMI: Last year, the F-35A beat out the Eurofighter, F/A-18 Super Hornet, and the Rafale to replace the nation’s aging F-18C fleet. Ignoring jet v jet comparisons, look at the big picture: A few NATO countries have Eurofighters, only two nations have Rafales, and no one in Europe has (or is buying) Super Hornets. Everyone is buying F-35s, and a key part of interoperability in an alliance is having the same stuff.

The Space Force assumed control of some Army satellites, completing its take-over of all military SATCOM missions. The Space Force doesn’t have all military space programs, though, and it’s unclear if it ever will. The Army has a large space portfolio, the most users of space data, and is fighting to keep its remaining space missions out of the Space Force.

The Army be jammin. Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics were both awarded contracts to come up with a long-range jammer for the Army. Whoever named the Terrestrial Layer System – Echelons Above Brigade (TLS-EAB) needs to be fired, but this ground vehicle-mounted system will be the bigger brother of the TLS-Brigade Combat Team (TLS-BCT) EW system currently in development. The goal is ambitious: a 1,000-mile ES/EA/cyber capability. That means it will have an air component to it—drones. Speaking of drones, EA, and the Army, the service’s nascent MQ-1 jamming pod program is being resurrected with an eye on multiple aerial platforms.

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