Iran unveils squadrons of flying boats:

[RecycleMichael]

Do you think the flying boats go slow enough to fish? It would be really cool to fly around until I see some big fish then be able to troll a hook past them.

[waterboy]

Yeah, with a head wind out of the north you could slow it down to a crawl relative to the river and bowfish ala Palin if you wanted. Maybe even make it onto the History Channel! Can you chaw?

[waterboy]

Here is what I find interesting. Everyone assumes this is some sort of lame offensive weapon presented as a threat to America. There is no indication of that in the article. In fact, at least one poster following the story noted that:

     "As a offensive platform, these are a joke, as a maritime patrol craft these are awesome. Radar evading? have the Iranians not heard about lookdown shoot down radar tech that was perfected in the 80's? Interms of protecting territorial waterways, this is a nice craft."

Instead, everyone here scoffs at it. Keep this in mind. This vehicle is easily portable (can be broken down, transported and reassembled using UPS) cheap to make and can travel where most military vehicles cannot get to quickly. It can slow down to a crawl, turn on a dime and carry 50 caliber machine guns. It could do damage and be gone before our more sophisticated weapons systems even know what has happened. Who would have thought that improvised weapons in Iraq would have stopped our sophisticated Humvees and caused so much damage. In other words it is a similar concept to our WWII Sherman tanks vs the German Panzers.

I would think they could be quite useful during natural catastrophes too.

[custosnox]

found this on popsci's website on the craft

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-09/irans-boat-plane-thing-would-strike-fear-other-flying-military-boats-if-they-existed

[Quinton]

They look like a new seado.