SHIELD is real

[Cdnwolf]

https://m.thevintagenews.com/2015/10...aft-carrier/2/

[aspqrz]

Originally Posted by Cdnwolf

https://m.thevintagenews.com/2015/10...aft-carrier/2/

Was it ever built? AFAIR from reading about these WiG craft, less than a handful were ever actually built (2? 3?) and they're currently rotting somewhere in the Black Sea area.

Phil

[StainlessSteelCynic]

The first page from the posted link doesn't specifically say it, but kind of hints that it's a "what-if" project. The original source (almost) makes it a bit clearer and states that "a researcher tried to re-invent a Soviet idea..."
The original source can be found here
http://englishrussia.com/2015/10/23/...rrier-project/
The photos here are much clearer and the craft looks to my eye to be a little too clean for it be real, I'm convinced it's a CG photo mock-up.

Personally, I would argue that whoever created it has no clear idea about the ekranoplans and that those four nacelles mounted on the forward fuselage actually contain engines... image all that hot exhaust blowing over the flightdeck!

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Considering those are shoulder spars, wing gloves and wings of an F14 (D model, I believe) photoshopped onto an Ekranoplan I kinda don't think that got built

[pmulcahy11b]

Yeah, I have to call the bullsh*t award on this one!

[SquireNed]

Read the little band under the first photo and it credits an artist.

The main things that I see as obvious tip-offs to the CGI are that our ground and sea have significant motion blur, but our plane has none. In reality, it's hard to do that with a camera.

The rear left of the runway looks like it's got an error from a distort operation.

The rear "bumper" for lack of a better term appears to be artificially grafted on, with aliasing no less. It is posterized in a way that the rest of the image is not. Paint doesn't match, which seems like a major oversight if nothing else.

The CCCP decal goes over flight control surfaces. Not technically impossible, but I'd think that you'd prefer to have it somewhere where it won't get visually distorted if the pilot does maneuvers. But then, nobody listens to me.

Left rear strut for jet pods or whatever (I'm not into aviation terms and it shows) has improbable angle, unless the craft is asymmetrical.

Windows coming out of structures that appear to be holding up other structures as large as themselves. I'm no engineer, but I'm pretty sure that's how you tear struts out.

Left body of airframe roof (which has what appear to be torpedo tubes, but again, I'm no expert on aviation equipment things) is composed almost exclusively of the exact same color pixel (or close enough to the naked eye) in a failed attempt to create the appearance of a flat surface.

What appear to be mounts for the wings that enable them to be retracted or extended have obscene amounts of noise, especially when compared to other parts of the image. Wings appear to intersect plane body, where you would expect to at least see a seam.

On the high vertical view, you can see a noticeable bend in the runway. There is no accompanying seam, and while this is probably possible, it seems unlikely to be of much benefit, especially since it appears that the runway would be angling down if anything; take-off and landing would be difficult.

Jets on the nose: Two from horizontal view, three from vertical. Also, obviously copy-pasted and (again, not an aerospace engineer) don't seem like they'd be of any use for the purposes of actually providing meaningful thrust.

Look at how the runway starts on the front of the plane. That bend. I'm going to have nightmares about that. Either it's got some sort of burns or scoring, since there's no appropriate shadow source (except perhaps the cameraman), and the shadow stops abruptly where the material does.

Flight deck lines intersect with door onto flight deck.

Basically, my hunch is that it's either a three-dimensional object with photorealistic textures and a decent renderer, or someone's obsessive Photoshop project. Given the inconsistencies with, say, the nose jet pods and a handful of other features, I'd lean for Photoshop, but the helipad sequence screams CGI to me. Final verdict: Model with photorealistic textures, not all renders were made with the same version. Photoshop used afterward for the sake of enhancing realism, placing into scenes.