How a ship that glides like a pelican could change travel and defense

NORTH KINGSTOWN R I AP The winged commuter ferry gliding over the surface of Narragansett Bay could be a new method of coastal transportation or a new kind of warship Its maker Regent Craft is betting on both Twelve quietly buzzing propellers line the -foot -meter wingspan of Paladin a sleek ship with an airplane s nose It looks nothing like the sailboats and fishing trawlers it speeds past through New England s largest estuary We had this vision five years ago for a seaglider something that is as fast as an aircraft and as easy to drive as a boat revealed CEO Billy Thalheimer jubilant after an hours-long test run of the new vessel On a cloudy August morning Thalheimer sat in the Paladin s cockpit and for the first time took control of his company s prototype craft to test its hydrofoils The electric-powered watercraft has three modes float foil and fly From the dock it sets off like any motorized boat Farther away from land it rises up on hydrofoils the same kind used by sailing ships that compete in America s Cup The foils enable it to trip more than miles per hour and about a person s height above the bay What makes this vessel so peculiar is that it s designed to soar about feet meters above the water at up to miles per hour a feat that hasn t quite happened yet with the first trial flights off Rhode Island s seacoast planned for the end of summer or early fall If triumphant the Paladin will coast on a cushion of air over Rhode Island Sound lifting with the same ground effect that pelicans cormorants and other birds use to conserve strength as they swiftly glide over the sea It could zoom to New York City which takes at least three hours by train and longer on traffic-clogged freeways in just an hour Who will ride a seaglider As it works to prove its seaworthiness to the U S Coast Guard and other regulators around the world Regent is already lining up future customers for commercial ferry routes around Florida Hawaii Japan and the Persian Gulf Regent is also working with the U S Marines to repurpose the same vessels for island-hopping troops in the Pacific Those vessels would likely arrangement electric battery power for jet fuel to cover longer journeys With backing from influential investors including Peter Thiel and Mark Cuban Thalheimer says he s trying to use new mechanism to revive the comfort and refined nature of s-era flying boats that were popular in aviation s golden age before they were eclipsed by commercial airlines This time Thalheimer added they re safer quieter and emission-free I thought they made voyage easier in a way that made total sense to me Cuban stated by email this week It s hard to journey around water for short distances It s expensive and a hassle Regent can solve this concern and make that excursion fun easy and efficient Co-founders and friends Thalheimer a skilled sailor and chief instrument officer Mike Klinker who grew up lobster fishing met while both were freshmen at the Massachusetts Institute of Apparatus and later worked together at Boeing They started Regent in They ve already tested and flown a smaller model But the much bigger -passenger Paladin prototype of a product line called Viceroy began foil testing this summer after years of engineering research and advance A manufacturing facility is under construction nearby with the vessels set to carry passengers by Taking flight but not an aircraft The International Maritime Organization classifies wing-in-ground-effect vehicles such as Regent s as ships not aircraft But a database of civilian ships kept by the London-based organization lists only six around the world all of them built before it issued new safety guidance on such craft in following revisions sought by China France and Russia The IMO says it treats them as marine vessels because they operate in the vicinity of other watercraft and must use the same rules for avoiding collisions The Coast Guard takes a similar approach You drive it like a boat Thalheimer explained If there s any traffic on the harbor you ll see it on the screen If you see a boat you d go around it We re never flying over boats or anything like that One of the biggest technical challenges in Regent s design is the shift from foiling to flying Hydrofoils are fast for a seafaring vessel but far slower than the speeds needed to lift a conventional airplane from a runway That s where air blown by the propellers comes in effectively tricking the wing into generating high lift at low speeds All of this has worked perfectly on the computer simulations at Regent s headquarters in North Kingstown Rhode Island The next step is testing it over the water Capitalizing on concerns over tensions with China For decades the only warship known to mimic such a ground-effect design was the Soviet Union s hulking ekranoplan which was built to fly under radar detection but never widely used In recent weeks however social media images of an apparent Chinese military ekranoplan have caught the attention of naval experts amid increasingly tense international disputes in the South China Sea Regent has capitalized on those concerns pitching its gliders to the U S leadership as a new method for carrying troops and cargo across island chains in the Indo-Pacific region It could also do clandestine intelligence collection anti-submarine warfare and be a mothership for small drones autonomous watercraft or medicinal evacuations commented Tom Huntley head of Regent s cabinet relations and defense division They fly below radar and above sonar which makes them really hard to see Huntley announced While the U S military has shown increasing interest questions remain about their detectability as well as their stability in various sea states and wind conditions and their cost at scale beyond a sparse prototypes and maintainability mentioned retired U S Navy Capt Paul S Schmitt an associate research professor at the Naval War College across the bay in Newport Rhode Island Schmitt who has seen Paladin from afar while sailing stated he also has questions about what kind of military mission would fit Regent s relatively short range and small passage maximum Floating past Interstate The possibilities that greater part excite Cuban and other Regent backers are commercial Driving Interstate through all the cities that span Florida s Atlantic Coast can take the better part of a day which is one reason why Regent is pitching Miami as a hub for its coastal ferry trips The Viceroy seagliders can already carry more passengers than the typical seaplane or helicopter but a growing number of electric hydrofoil startups such as Sweden s Candela and California-based Navier are trying to stake out ferry routes around the world Thalheimer sees his vehicles as more of a complement than a competitor to electric hydrofoils that can t journey as fast since they will all use the same docks and charging infrastructure but could specialize in different trip lengths