will F3D model a WIG?
 

How is F3D for modeling something like a wing in ground effect (WIG).

Air blows under the wing to help provide liftoff plus there's hydrodynamic lift to get to planing speed, and then the craft goes up out of the water to fly in ground effect.

Can anyone offer advice here?

I think FLOW-3D should be able to model a WIG vehicle. The caveat is that FLOW-3D uses an orthogonal grid with geometry embedded in it, instead of a body-fitted grid that stretches around the wing. This means that the boundary layer effects on the wing will be modeled in an approximate way. For the most part, people use other CFD packages than FLOW-3D for wing design.

Thanks for the reply. I'm not really needing steady state for the airfoil, I can use Xfoil (via Profili), etc. for that.

I'm after the planing acceleration/speed of the WIG caused by the air blowing under the wing from the forward thrust of the propellers.

So you have the lifting effects of the water on the hulls of the WIG combined with the lifting force of the air being blown under the wing combined with the constantly changing forward thrust of the propeller.

I'm guessing it's a pretty tough nut to crack but I'm willing to try, perhaps one "variable" at a time (e.g. start by modeling the planing hull.)

Yes, it will be tough. Once you have the flow around the static hull well-configured (mesh dependency has been resolved, etc.), then you can use the general moving object model to allow the hull to pitch (if you need that effect). Good luck with it. Let me know how it goes.