[HN Gopher] US Marines to get high-speed, radar-evading electric...
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US Marines to get high-speed, radar-evading electric seagliders for
rescue ops
Author : jdmark
Score : 121 points
Date : 2025-03-28 21:56 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (interestingengineering.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (interestingengineering.com)
| lttlrck wrote:
| $4.75mln seem like a great deal for a working prototype?
|
| I'd love one of these in MS Flight Simulator or DCS.
| bluesounddirect wrote:
| is this a ground effect machine?
| llm_nerd wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXE0UTHnV5g
|
| It is a ground effect vehicle.
| EA wrote:
| "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."
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| "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
| phire wrote:
| One more litetal translation of "ekranoplan" is "screen
| glider", so sea glider isn't that far away from it.
| gertrunde wrote:
| 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).
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| 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.
| JR1427 wrote:
| This is like the old Soviet Ekranoplans [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun-class_ekranoplan
| EA-3167 wrote:
| 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.
| knifie_spoonie wrote:
| I'm guessing modern sensors and fly-by-wire systems might at
| least handle the last part.
| mmooss wrote:
| Why must pilots be highly focused? To avoid hitting the
| ground? I hope there is some autopilot to help with that ...
| Etheryte wrote:
| Conditions at sea can and do change rapidly, when you're
| flying something like this, that's crucial.
| Rygian wrote:
| 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.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| It sounds less aggressive.
| morkalork wrote:
| Sounds nice and friendly, just like all those autonomous
| drones for SAR
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| It's too low to do anything else. Snipers would decimate an
| entire attack squadron.
| nilamo wrote:
| - Very fast - avoids radar/detection - water based
|
| My first assumption is that this is for stealth ops. "Rescue"
| doesn't need those features.
| mrweasel wrote:
| 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.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| > 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.
| K0balt wrote:
| 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.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Congratulations, you are being rescued. Please do not
| resist.
| jjice wrote:
| Stealth and rescue can go hand and hand, no? I guess stating
| "rescue" still may bury the lead in that case.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| 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.
| mlyle wrote:
| > 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.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| 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.
| vonmoltke wrote:
| > 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.
| hammock wrote:
| Pretty sure the search mission has been taken over by sats
| and drones for the most part
| mlyle wrote:
| > 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.
| tylerflick wrote:
| 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?
| mikeyouse wrote:
| > 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.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| 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."
| mikeyouse wrote:
| 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >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.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| 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.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| 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.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| 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.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Reminds me of this:
|
| https://theonion.com/soldier-excited-to-take-over-father-
| s-o...
| ranger207 wrote:
| 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
| meigwilym wrote:
| > This will not primarily be for rescue ops.
|
| The "radar-evading" rather gives the game away.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Radar evasion is very useful if you're rescuing someone from
| enemy/contested territory.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| SAR assets can still be shot at. Opposed SAR is something the
| Navy and Marine Corps train to.
| ge96 wrote:
| Would be a cool life, you operate a converted PBY Catalina that
| is a cargo plane and you bum around ferrying stuff
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's a thing! https://www.instagram.com/thatmallardguy/
| ge96 wrote:
| Oh man that's cool. It would be impractical but an S-38
| would be cool too but I'm biased from The Aviator
| alabastervlog wrote:
| 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.
| ge96 wrote:
| Yeah I need a bathroom connected to a plumbing system for
| ex
| brudgers wrote:
| A DC3 is probably more practical.
|
| But certainly less romantic.
| ge96 wrote:
| I hear there's a Philippine Mars not doing anything
| jdiez17 wrote:
| > 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.
| jkaptur wrote:
| Including https://xkcd.com/2128/
| timewizard wrote:
| > 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.
| mmooss wrote:
| While I'm sure the US military sees the obvious possible
| logisitical solution for the island chains - and I've read them
| saying that in the past - that doesn't mean there's something
| deceitful going on here.
|
| Before you make national security depend on a new, developing
| technology, and one that is also in limited supply, you give
| that technology a simpler, smaller mission to try it out and to
| develop it. That is, they don't want control of the first
| island chain to depend on Regent Craft all-electric sea gliders
| quite yet.
| maxglute wrote:
| Well TBF they will be likely primarily used to "rescue" marines
| off suicide deployments in 1IC. Marine haphazardly rebranded
| themselves into MLR / littoral regiment, AKA NMESIS missile
| battery uber drivers for Pacific theatre to stay relevant. But
| anyone with half a brain saw how proposal was not sustainable
| one way mission for crayon eaters. 12 passengers + 3500lb
| cargon won't reinforce much, i.e. replenish couple Naval Strike
| Missiles... but likely just supplies to keep the people going,
| but more realistically it's good for evacuating whose left +
| body bags because region is going to be saturated with PRC
| fires. This glider proposal is consoling marines MLR that yes,
| their rebranding / new conop/conemp isn't terminally stupid,
| there is an exit plan after hopefully the NMESIS squeeze off
| their shots, assuming they survive PRC drones/missiles etc.
| acc_297 wrote:
| 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
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| 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.
| acc_297 wrote:
| 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.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I'm imagining the aging defense contract awarders listening
| to the podcasts right now on the treadmill.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > 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
| vonmoltke wrote:
| > 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.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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.
| vonmoltke wrote:
| 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.
| fidotron wrote:
| 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.
| nradov wrote:
| 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.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >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.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| 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!
| m4rtink wrote:
| 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!
| nimbius wrote:
| >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.
| financetechbro wrote:
| Because Tesla is the only company capable of making electric
| vehicles...?
| MaxPock wrote:
| Congratulations for having capabilities Russia has had for three
| decades.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Which are in active service today?
|
| Regardless, the US beat Russia to that too:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collins_X-112
|
| oorah!
| nsiemsen wrote:
| It's a YC W21 company!
|
| https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/regent
| calmbonsai wrote:
| Wow, that's quite the "mission pivot".
|
| We already have all-electric trainers like the Bye eFlyer
| https://byeaerospace.com/ so I can see this "working", but I'm
| not certain how effective it would be compared to something as
| well-tested as the "stealth" version of the MH-6 helicopter
| that's been in production for about a decade.
|
| Additionally, the basic non-stealth MH-6 airframe and power-
| plant configuration has been around since the 1960s so its base
| flight characteristics are well-known.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Hello Greenland
| ein0p wrote:
| Are they drone evading though? Because if not, then this is a
| waste of time and taxpayer money. Literally any idiot can 3D
| print a drone capable of defeating tens of millions of dollars in
| military hardware from 15-20 miles away. We're not in Kansas
| anymore.
| hnav wrote:
| 3D print a drone that will intercept a 180mph vessel from 20
| miles away? You should consider putting together a prototype, I
| can only imagine you'd receive funding.
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