Back in June 2025, Naval News (link) ran a story titled: “China Builds New Large Jet‑Powered Ekranoplan”
Well, about that “jet‑powered” part, turns out the four engines perched above the wing are turboprops, not jets. The photos now circulating below make that pretty unambiguous that it is not a Chinese "Caspian Sea Monster"
This “civilian” program is nominally tied to the China Coast Guard, The airframe itself is a fairly traditional flying‑boat design with high wing, boat hull, while the T‑tail with twin vertical stabilizers are new. If you ask me, it gives off WWII PBY Catalina vibes, and that’s probably not accidental. The Catalina was a patrol, SAR, and logistics workhorse; this not-monster looks built for the same set of missions.
- Search‑and‑rescue for downed pilots?
- Island‑to‑island logistics?
- Maritime patrol in the “civilian” sense?
All plausible.
And because it’s a Chinese “civilian flying boat,” naturally it must have the ability to carry weapons, purely for safety purposes, of course. The under‑wing hardpoints in the photo below shows of a bomb slung under.
The USN PBY-5A Catalina source of the photo (link)
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