Is your yard cluttered with retired Boeing 727s? Do you dream of stylish sea travel capped with the potential for fiery death? The Hydro Lance Corporation has a solution to your problem: giant, untested pontoons!
With so many planes grounded on account of that pesky Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption, we couldn't help but think that the world's airliners are drastically underused. The Hydro Lance Corporation, a.k.a. Your Three-Year-Old Sister Has Learned Photoshop, Inc., has gone above and beyond in its drive to answer our unspoken plea. The idea is to reuse the fuselage, controls, and engines from a run-of-the-mill jet airliner, attaching massive "Hydro Lance" pontoons to either side. Bird of the skies? No! Fish of the sea!
Naturally, this ignores the realities of sea-level corrosion on a jet engine and the abnormal, not-designed-in fuselage loading, but those are minor concerns, because really, when you get right down to it, BOAT PLANE. (Or is that ekranoplane? Hard to say.)
Yes, that dignified young lady with her bottom hanging out is gawking at the shipplane. This must be legit!
According to the company, the plane-boat-ferry-death-spear-boat-things you see here will be able to glide over the surface of the sea at 161 mph. They are claimed to be more efficient than their traditional ferry or yacht counterparts. But wait! There's more! Need to up your passenger counts? Hit up the optional between-the-pontoons passenger-ferry hull, which pushes the death toll passenger count up to 700 doomed thrilled souls. Pricing starts a paltry $6 million for the conversion; HLC estimates a sweet payback for ferry models of just 120 days.
All they need is a capital investment of $3.75 million to get up and running. Who's in?
(Thanks for the tip grzydj) [HydroLance]