hi again , before the first gulf war tempted me away, i was working up in inverness .scotland, on the marine pollution unit. our job was to spray oil slicks with dispersant. incidentally, this was not a detergent , but vegetablle oil seeded with bacteria.
using dc3s we spprayed from 25 feet. if you went too low the spotter plane could see the tracks of your propwash in the water and told you to pull up. we started our run from 150 feet , descending to about 25 purely visually. there was no turning below 50 feet . that run was the most nerve wracking thing imaginable, and seemed to go on for ever. however, we were well within the ground cushion, so little power was needed to keep the 80 knots required. you really noticed it. the relief when the spotter said spray off was fantastic ! we did 3 runs and then back to stornaway to refill. alan
"Gord Beaman" wrote in message
...
"M. H. Greaves" wrote:

I think it would depend on the attitude and the angle of attack, also
wing
area; the vulcan would float because of the wing area, it pushed a
cushion
of air in front of it at low altitude.

I think that it's there for all a/c, look at that huge Russian
jobbie...'ekronoplanne' (or somesuch). It was designed to use
ground effect...I understand that you gotta be within about
one-half of your wingspan from the surface. You can almost
picture it, imagine why they use those 'winglets' at the tips of
Airbus and others, they prevent vortices by 'discouraging' the
higher pressure air from under the wings curling up and over the
tips to the lower pressure air above the wing.
--

-Gord.[/quote]