I believe ekranoplans will come back. The biggest issue the Soviets faced with their ekranoplans should be addressable with modern technology. That issue is stability. The problem is when you have waves under the wings they create different pressures and air currents under the wings, which makes the airframe unstable and may cause it to flip to the side or dive into the water. That is why the soviet ekranoplans had enormous tails.

However, this is something that should be addressable nowadays. One should be able to design a system where a ladar scans the water surface ahead and a computer uses that information and various control surfaces on the wings to compensate for waves below the wings. It sounds very complex but it should be doable.

Of course, the ocean can produce waves that are much too big for ekranoplans regardless of what stability technology one uses. But another modern advantage is that we can now know the state of the ocean everywhere at any time, so a solution for this is that the ekranoplans simply should avoid areas with large waves.

These vehicles would be perfect for fast transport if fuel prices were lower. The problem is that with today's high fuel prices, the demand for fast but energy inefficient transport is not enough to justify researching new aircraft types.

But this also has good military potential. It is fast and yet it can carry much more weight than an airplane. It can carry enough armor to make it immune to anti-air missiles, yet it is fast enough to escape anti-ship missiles. It can carry all the active anti-missile technology of a warship, but not be a slow sitting duck like a warship. It can carry a powerful ship borne radar, yet move together with fighter formations. It can carry attack troops to beaches at high speeds and then land in the water right in front of the beach.

So .... a lot of potential.