Rostislav Alexeyev

Rostislav Evgenievich Alexeyev (Russian: Ростисла́в Евге́ньевич Алексе́ев; born December 18, 1916 in Novozybkov, Chernigov Governorate (now Bryansk Oblast), Russian Empire; died February 9, 1980 in Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod), USSR) was a designer of highspeed shipbuilding who invented and designed the world's first ekranoplan vehicles. His work has been compared to that of A.N. Tupolev in aviation and S.P. Korolev in space flight.

Alexeyev was responsible for putting into practice high speed ships on the so-called low submerged underwater wings, the most popular ones being passenger ships Raketa, Volga, Meteor, Kometa, and Burevestnik, with passenger capacity up to 150 persons and cruising speed up to 100 km/h (62 mph; 54 kn).

Alexeyev revolutionised the shipbuilding industry (though in secrecy) by inventing crafts that use ground effect, whereby a wing traveling close to the ground is provided with a better lift-drag ratio - thereby enabling a combination of greater aircraft weight for less power and/or enhanced fuel economy.

In his career working for the military he created a ten engine ekranoplan referred to at the time by American intelligence as "the Caspian sea monster". The KM or "korabl-maket", the largest ekranoplan ever built, was one of the first very successful vehicles designed by Alexeyev and built by his Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau. The KM was intended as a test platform to examine the possibilities of the "Wing In Ground" (WIG) effect.

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