It's an Ekranoplan:
Ekranoplans, aka ground-effect vehicles, are nothing new. Aerodynamicists were mulling them over eighty years ago. The Soviets began tinkering with them fifty years ago.
The problem with them is that they are boats built as rigidly as airplanes, which they have to be, in order to fly. Seaplanes have problems operating in high sea states, because they get the shit pounded out of them on takeoff and landing (since they have to do that into the wind, that means they're doing that into the waves). Ekranoplans are not immune to aerodynamics, they'd have to takeoff and land into the wind. So when the seas are up to any degree, they're not flying. Which is why you don't see commercial Ekranoplans.
Other than the fact that Ekranoplans of that size are classified as boats, not aircraft (cheaper to crew), it's hard to see what that thing will do that a DHC-2 can't do better.
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