What's your favorite seaplane

It was a joke about Riter's "aqua-aeroplane".
The P-38 is in aqua and it is an aeroplane...Hence, an aqua-aeroplane...But, not a seaplane, float plane, or flying boat.

 

I read a number of navy training craft ditched because pilots lost track of their fuel researves and ended up in the drink. They found a f3f that went down due to a engine malfunction the pilot reported he had lots of fuel but the engine conked out like it ran out. They found it fairly recent the diver said it should have been an easy salvage it was intact. However when they got there it was gone. He thought s savage company took it. They have to file a salvage notice and thought someone beat them to it or they missed logged the location so they circled Ang found it s mile away completely broken up. Thought maybe s drag net snagged it. Anyway they were able to recover most of it and now restoring it to flying condition. During demantiling found the fuel switch was defective and not the pilots fault.

 

It was restored to static condition - to t he best of my knowledge and is in Pensacola now.

The pilot, a Marine brigadier general(retired), double ace, & MoH winner, that "parked" the F3F in the ocean, was there to greet it when it was unloaded from the salvage barge.

 

That would be Bob Galer. He ditched an F3F-2 (bn 0976) while attempting to land on Saratoga.

 

I didn't think about the spruce goose since it was a one off and never operational but she is a beauty for a sea plane

 

Heinkel He 115. It was used to transfer Finnish Reconnaissance troops behind the Soviet lines and bring wounded soldiers back. Got some photos of the action behind the lines. Not perhaps the prettiest but efficient. Notice the Finnish markings here.

Heinkel He 115 - Wikipedia

 

Yeah love the amphibians like the albatross and the later Catalina's, the goose and others. The goose was shortened and lengthened by Grumman to make a couple of other craft and said it was the bases for the albatross. They stayed with the basic hull design just kept resizing it to fit the needs. I'm reworking one of my f toy goose got three all navy blue with Japanese markings want to get more accurate detail in the cockpit it's a bit off and add the rear bulkhead wall with a recess to simulate the doorway and maybe cut open the nose and add a the nose hatch for the forward storage compartment. Might try to do a convention where they added the folding wing floats might look good with the floats folded up and maybe change to a turbo prop. Got some great pics of the conversion. Printed out my draws for the dhc twin otter can't wait to get started on it have to get more evergreen sheets getting low on my sheet plastic should go to the swap meet and by some old plastic signs saw a video where a guy built a buch of modeles using plastic sign from the hardware store said the plastic was cheap and easy to get. That or I should go to my usual place for cheap scrap plastic paragon plastics in Santa Ana. Haven't been there in years bough lots of scrap in bulk by the pound got some great thick sheets that I used to make my ship hulls.

 

At least for the 185 2-3 feet seems the norm, although a few pilots wouldn't do that. One pilot I knew, did 4 feet in an emergency.

General rule of thumb for civilian float planes is a wave height that is half of the float height.

 

Or you can just pancake...



I wonder if those small float planes have an emergency parachute system?

Should commercial airliners have emergency breaking parachutes?

 

Saw documentary On commercial planes. The people aboard opened their vests before got out of the plane and drowned. Did not get out of the plane because of the vests that made them too big and just floated against the plane roof although the plane made a beautiful landing to the ashore line. What a Pity. The big problem is panic among the passengers. How many would open the chute inside the plane? I think the ideas are good but people in panic seem to ruin them.

I am not against vests or chutes. Only against the way they are used which kills the Rest of us passengers.

 

Wow...i wasn't thinking about personal parachutes...as you say, that would be mayhem! I mean plane parachutes they use for small planes (but i'm not sure if they are used for small floatplanes...)
They have saved lives already...


And for large airliners...I've watched every episode of "Air crash investigation" - A number of deadly incidents occur after the point of no return on the run way - So the aircraft hasn't enough runway to stop safely so are forced to try and take off (The Concorde crash a good example) - Reverse thrust AND breaking parachutes could have avoided some of these crashes. Why wouldn't you add a safety net like those used on air craft carriers?

 

Cool 185

 

Wow that is a good one a seaplane carring a float plane. What country did that and types of planes