Exotic Seaplane Designs

[RussC]

It looks like a museum.

  I was born not far from the destination end of that flight. Near the old convention site, in Burnham park is this pillar dedicated to Balbo and his airmen, along with streets, parks, schools and more in 'Little Italy'. In the background of the picture is the old terminal of the now departed Meigs' Field, the lakefront airport, which was surrounded on all sides by water, excepting a roadway, much like the later Kai-Tak. A carrier landing for exec. jets while its short runway existed.



 They arrived overhead in the windy city as my Father was being born.



  BTW- the S55 gave way to the passenger version S-66

[Green Dragon]

Really can't understand why Italeri hasn't done a kit of the S55, great looking plane and very relevent to Italian aviation history. I'd buy a few for whiffing plus one for Porco Rosso and and a couple for RW.

Paul Harrison

[PR19_Kit]

I've seen that piccie before and I have an idea it was at a commemoration of Balbo's massive formation flight to the Chicago World's Fair.

Thanks, PR19!
I have this picture from the web - found it when researching Balbo's formation flights some time ago. Do you remember is this "diorama" in a museum or just at some exhibition place (I think it's a museum ).

Darned if I can remember Canso, sorry. The best bet would be the Italian Historical Military Aviation Museum at Bracciano. See here :

http://www.aviationmuseum.eu/World/Europe/Italy/Vigna_di_Valle/Museo_Storico_dell_AMI.htm

Oddly it's not so far from Orbetello either.

[Zaskar24]

It looks like a museum.

  I was born not far from the destination end of that flight. Near the old convention site, in Burnham park is this pillar dedicated to Balbo and his airmen, along with streets, parks, schools and more in 'Little Italy'. In the background of the picture is the old terminal of the now departed Meigs' Field, the lakefront airport, which was surrounded on all sides by water, excepting a roadway, much like the later Kai-Tak. A carrier landing for exec. jets while its short runway existed.



 They arrived overhead in the windy city as my Father was being born.



  BTW- the S55 gave way to the passenger version S-66



It was crazy when Daley brought the bulldozers in the middle of the night and made Meigs inoperable.  It was fun to atch the planes come in when I was at wither the Shedd or Planetarium.  Good old Chicago.

[PR19_Kit]

Indeed, Mayor Daley is one of those people who the world would be better off without. 

[RussC]

Indeed, Mayor Daley is one of those people who the world would be better off without. 

Speaking of dark forces - note your posting count , Kit. Soon to hit a quad demonic.

[PR19_Kit]

Speaking of dark forces - note your posting count , Kit. Soon to hit a quad demonic.

Cor, so it is! 

I'll pass that today with my usual rate of posting.

[PR19_Kit]

There you are Russ, post 6666.  

[CANSO]

...The best bet would be the Italian Historical Military Aviation Museum at Bracciano...

Precisely! See here.
Speaking of exotic planes and modeling them, back in those days people did have similar interests - this is a magazine cover from 1933:

I just love it! BTW, did anybody build the Glencoe's 1:96 Savoia-Marchetti S.55? Is it a good kit? Is it better than the 1:72 Delta-kit? I could find one short review, but no pictures of a finished model whatsoever.  

[PR19_Kit]

I got a 404 error from your link Canso, but with a bit of detective work I translated it to this :-

http://www.euro-t-guide.com/See_Coun/Italy/Rome/I_See_Italy_Aviation_Museum_2-1.htm

And lo and behold, there's that piccie you posted earlier. 

That sure is a HUGE collection of S.55s in all sizes, but I suspect they surrounded the place with mirrors, or some of them are poking through the walls! 

I've never heard of the Glencoe kit I'm afraid.

[pyro-manic]

I'm so gutted I missed the museum at Bracciano. I got on the train there from Rome in November, but due to bad directions (obtained from the interweb) I got off at the wrong stop and spent three hours walking around trying to find the bloody place. I do intend to go back in the near future to visit it. On a somewhat related topic, the town of Bracciano is very nice indeed. Lovely castle...

Oddly enough, they don't have an S-55 there - the only surviving one is in Brazil.

[Rheged]

Didn't one of the Italian Schneider Trophy entries have a hull like a speedboat  and no real floats, with a high speed water propellor, and when there was enough water speed the pilot used a clutch mechanism to transfer thrust to the airscrew and off it went (probably in a haze of burning clutch-plate and perhaps the odd gear tooth escaping its housing)   I think it was a 1930's Macchi, but I'm sure one of  our flock will have all of the data to hand.                                         

ADDED TEN MINUTES LATER:-   It was the Piaggio P7............worth a quick google to boggle at the wierd device!!

[perttime]

water propellor, and when there was enough water speed the pilot used a clutch mechanism to transfer thrust to the airscrew and off it went (

Piaggio P.7 / Piaggio-Pegna P.c.7, 1929 Schneider Trophy. But it didn't go. Problems with the clutches...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.7

[CANSO]

I got a 404 error from your link Canso, but with a bit of detective work I translated it to this :-
...And lo and behold, there's that piccie you posted earlier. 
That sure is a HUGE collection of S.55s in all sizes, but I suspect they surrounded the place with mirrors, or some of them are poking through the walls! 
I've never heard of the Glencoe kit I'm afraid.

PR19, thank you for posting the full link! But it's strange, is this only you receiving an error message, because when I use the link in my post it opens the same page as the one you give above?!?
If you look closely it's not the same photo as the one I posted - the perspective is different. But it's still the same place and this is important.
I don't think they used mirrors (if you are serious about this). The middle part of the exhibit (the tables and the planes in the air) is just surrounded by some kind of a glass wall to keep it safe I guess.There are 3 rows of planes, each row consisting of 8 planes + 1 leading a/c in the middle row (to be seen in the first photo only). The reflections left and right don't count for sure.
Below is the Glencoe kit, sometimes given as 1:100, but clearly scaled in 1:96 in its latest reissue.

It must be a repack of an old ITC (Ideal Toy Company) kit from the 70's as far as I understood.

There is also a "Ringo issue"  (not Ringo Starr) of the latter kit:

That's all the information I have.
 

[Old Wombat]

Kit, I'm seeing 3 columns of 8 aircraft supported (I don't know how, I assume they're hanging but I can't see the wires) over 5 clearly different tables.

No smoke & mirrors on this one, as far as I can tell. You've got reflections out to the sides but they're not part of the display.

Pretty impressive, I must say!