A unique military flying machine nicknamed the Caspian Monster is being dragged out of the sea to go on display in Russia a quarter of a century after it was abandoned as a Cold War relic.
Powered by eight jets behind the cockpit, the Lun-class ekranoplan was designed to be used in rapid attacks on enemy shipping. Neither aircraft nor ship, it was a hybrid that used the “ground effect” generated by the air pressure of its large wings to fly no more than four metres (13ft) above the surface of the water.
The 74m-long craft was armed with six anti-ship missiles intended to be fired from huge launchers fitted in pairs on top of the fuselage. It was abandoned in the 1990s and fell
