This may more evidence of close Russo-Iranian collaboration.

Russia has led the way in ground effects machines or ground effects vehicles for sixty plus years. Prototypes existed and were tested before WWII in Scandinavia. I wonder if these have the improved longitudinal stability which was a long term weakness.

The US programs were headed by a German but work is being carried out in a number of countries still.

The Russians built some huge examples. One was a 400 tonner.

reminds me of tale spin

wow... that looks not intimidating at all.

seaplanes? Really Iran?? seaplanes?

Welcome to the 1930's.

Man, these planes would have *ruled* the skies during WWI.

They are doing the opposite of that thought experiment...you know the one were you take a machine gun back to the past and kill entire armies. They are taking machines from the past, to the future to get killed by armies.

*wings on *water

Adding video to channels (Water, Wings) - requested by kulpims.

And I don't give a flying f**k. More targets for Israeli jets.

I'M ON A BOAT!

What actual tactical advantage does a craft such as this bring to the table?

Flying boats are OK. But what they really wanted was freaking sharks with freaking lasers on their freaking heads.

The story behind the development of these planes must have been like this:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: We will strike fear in the hearts of our enemies with our advanced Iranian technology!!!
Government Pansy: Sir, we don't really have enough money or resources to develop proper weapons. But we do have these 20 old canoes, and 40 leftover airplane wings, oh, and about 40 WW2 machine guns as well. Maybe we can glue some of them together.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: PERFECT!!! MUAHAHAHAHHA (evil laugh)

Currently Iran's only defense is the thread of "blocking Strait of Hormuz" so that oil tankers can't leave the persian gulf. They can't block the tankers thru air because of superior aviation technology on the other side, so they are exploring other options.

This is purely for defensive purposes, so that US/Israel would face real consequences, if they decide to attack Iran.

>> ^FishBulb:

What actual tactical advantage does a craft such as this bring to the table?