What's your favorite seaplane

i don't know why but I love sea planes. The Japanese Mavis and Emily are a couple of my favs. I have to say my favorite of the large four engine is the Boeing 314 clipper. Twin the goose and single the duck. I'm rebuilding my goose might sound petty but the cockpit is all wrong so rebuilding it plus adding some detail. Got three hope to rebuild one Grumman made a shorten version then later a stretched one that eventually lead to the albatross. Said they kept building on the goose design. Anyway love seaplanes got the Mavis and three emilies three 314s, and others, still need to get me a Mars and a few others now available. Also float planes have a bunch want to build a wildcatfish the navy had a number built but read used them for trainers only. The British had some great looking seaplanes as well as Germany the Dutch bought a number of them from Germany before the war to have a number of them sunk in a harbor by the Japanese. I read recently their still there as a popular diving attraction look but don't touch

 

Can’t go past the Catalina…but I have soft spots for the Supermarine Walrus and the Short Sunderland…

 

I have a Sunderland but I don't think they make a walrus in my scale I'll have to do some research. I had like six cats have two left after my wife made me sell most of my collection. Have one for the black cat and the other for the navy early war camo.

 

Hmmmm, forgot about her as she flew just that once, she is a good looking plane

 

Found a company peters models makes a resin walrus but I've yet to find anyone selling any of his kits anywhere on the net or ebay

 

Catalina. There was an airline pilot who restored one into flying condition in Marin County, CA.

 

The cat is one of my favorites as well maybe why I had bought so many when I first got them they had a big sale and I bought six the cat in the early war colors for five each and one black cat for ten. Lol, if I had known minicraft included the parts for both in their kit I wouldn't had probably got the black cat as I would have had the parts to build one. The kit comes with four different nose turrets haven't figured out all the different times or versions each turret is for yet.

 

BTW, pre-war my uncle was an airline mechanic for United Airlines. He even worked on the famous China Clipper. He told me that they would take off with him climbing into the wing to adjust the engine in flight. After the engines were adjusted, they could land and take passengers. When WW2 broke out, he went down to the Navy which wanted to recruit him as a steward or messman. He refused and asserted that he had training, a certificate (from a Jr. College) as an airplane mechanic and experience (from one year at United). The chief insisted he sign up as a messman or steward. My uncle stood his ground. They went around a few times and then the chief signed him up as a mechanic. Uncle never went to boot camp and was sent to advance airplane mechanic school and went right back to Treasure Island (San Francisco). While working on USN seaplanes (most Catalinas), he could wave to his former coworkers at Pan Am. Eventually he was sent to Hawaii to work on airplanes. Spotless record but never promoted once in the USN.

 

Not in my uncle's case. Not once in trouble and a spotless record as a sailor. It was a matter of race in an white navy. He was a minority (all blacks, Pacific Islanders and Asians) and was supposed to have been a messman or steward. When he retired, he was a full bird USAFR colonel.

 

Wow that sounds crazy did they have a special harness and rings on the wing to hook on to while in flight. There was a seaplane I read the wings were so big they had a crawl tunnel for the engineer to craw thru and could adjust the engines from inside the wing, that's pretty crazy too but at least you were technically in the plane. Makes me think of that wing walker story a Lancaster gets hit and the engines on fire one of the crew crawls out with an extinguisher and puts out the fire. I did s lot of electrical service work for the navy mostly north island and sub pac. Never got to treasure island, I think the sea wolf was at sub pack when I had to fix a bunch of fluorescent street lamps at the tank farm there was a sub there but they had a screen pulled all around it and I knew the sea wolf had recently been commissioned. My scrariest job was climbing an old rusty radar tower that they had communication equipment the thing swayed and creaked I prayed to God please don't let this fall. The funniest was going to north island to run the line for the flag pole someone let it slip thru and they needed it fixed for an inspection the next day I was called out on a emergency service lol, what a laugh I was kinda puzzled there was lots of booms there on construction, I had to drive my boom from the gate to the back took forever as booms are slow then ran the line took like five mins then drive all the way back drop off my boom sign out. On north island they have some fast food places once I stopped at one. Then going over the bridge was a toll one way but later they said they had collected enough money to pay for the bridge and it care for decades and the bridge was free after that but they left the booths and gates in case they had to charge again.

 

The H8K Emily and...

The Martin JRM Mars

I wish they made more of those.

 

A number of the largest aircraft in the 1930s had wings thick enough for people to walk inside, mainly for mechanics to service the engines, but at least one - the Russian Maxim Gorky? - even had passenger cabins in the wings. I'm not an aircraft expert - help! - but apparently at relatively low speeds, the thick-wing configuration provided lift without excessive drag.

 

That is sad that the military, did such back then. I dislike racists. But unfortunately we are still far from eliminating it.

 

She is a beauty there are still a few flying, that good.

 

May I suggest that it might have helped to mention his race in the earlier post? That would make the situation perfectly clear.

I agree that at a time when the services were desperate to find or train enough mechanics, it was ridiculous to turn down a qualified man because of race.

 

Different times and different Navy. Ironically, the Old Navy (pre-1880s) had black petty-officers who oversaw white sailors. It was a legacy of the Civil War when blacks were accepted and could develop expertise and rise in rank. When the New Navy (meaning iron navy of 1880s onwards) was created, it adopted the "white man's burden" and attitude from the British. It was history and my uncle wasn't bitter over his experience. He wanted to serve his nation during the war and did. Being passed over for promotion because of race meant nothing to him (other than more pay that he could send home).

His aspirations for flight could not be denied (post war he earned his civilian pilot's license via Pan America's Flight Club and enlisted in the USMC but despite having a civilian pilot's license was denied flight training by the Marines and the USN (again race was a factor) and finally transferred to the Army Air Corps as an air cadet where he graduated, was commissioned and became a fighter pilot). Then the USAAC became the USAF and so he wore all four uniforms at one time or another.

Back on topic, when I asked him about Pan Am, he was very fond of his experience as an airline mechanic there and spoke highly of the China Clipper. After leaving the US Air Force as a regular (and entering the Reserves), he was hired as a pilot by Pan Am only after Pan Am's fleet captain told the union that if it had any objections to a Chinese pilot, they could talk with him personally. My uncle had passed Pan Am pilot's written examination twice (he scored so high they suspected he had cheated so they retested him under supervision and he scored high again). Despite test scores and his record as a fighter jock, there was some reluctance but Pan Am's fleet captain knew my uncle because he had worked on his seaplane and was trusted by him. Hence the fleet captain's intervention on his behalf.

 

You're going to shadow an enemy carrier task force and risk being chopped by CAP? Has to be the one with the most defensive armaments. So which one is it?