Grumman XP-50 Skyrocket Float Plane

[Burncycle]

I know a couple have been done but it just occurred to me, with the flat bottom and fuselage cropped before the leading edge of the wing.... what if it had a central float that retracted up and forward conformally to become the lower/forward fuselage (not completely unprecedented as the Blackburn B20 had a retracting main pontoon),  with wing floats that retracted to become the wingtips like a Catalina.  Aerodynamic drag reduction may not be a whole lot over a fixed pontoon design they may later discover, but it should certainly improve handling.

A wing folding mechanism outboard of the engines, possibly a two seater conversion and maybe a bit longer fuselage with central tail in addition to the H tail (reminiscent of an OV-1 Mohawk), or just enlarged tail surfaces, to improve yaw stability for water landing in case of engine out

You'd have a scout that could outrun those pesky zeros as the engines improve, still fit on warships for catapult use, and be nice and pleasant to fly long distances over water with no net engine torque...   

You could probably even keep the normal landing gear (may need a taller tail wheel). 

Grumman made things like the goose so they already had experience, would probably just take a young engineer doing a back of the napkin drawing at the lunch

[jcf]

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=44345.msg789050#msg789050