Orlyonok Ekranoplan

The A-90 Orlyonok is a Soviet ground-effect vehicle, a hybrid between aircraft and boat that skims just above the water surface in ground effect. It was designed at the Alexeyev Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau in Nizhny Novgorod in the 1970s as an amphibious troop transport for the Caspian and Black Seas. Only three were built; Western intelligence dubbed the family of craft the Caspian Sea Monster. A preserved example now sits in the open-air Russian Navy museum on the Khimki peninsula in Moscow, where the 58-metre hull with two NK-8 turbofans and an NK-12 turboprop in the nose floats on the reservoir. For aviation enthusiasts it is one of the rarest and strangest flying machines on earth.