unconventional float planes or flying boats

[McColm]

Hi Guys,
As you know I have an idea for a sea plane version of the Boeing 747.This has lead to a discussion of a
C -17 sea plane .I have collected the kits to build a C-130 Nimrod winged turbo jet version .
In the past I have tried to build a float plane Lockheed Constellation but I couldn't get a set of floats large enough to fit ,even 1/48 scale just didn't look right .
So using the Revell Sea Shadow  floats and adding them to the Airfix Nimrod fuselage .The floats will house the undercarriage wheels .The wing fitted but chopped to look folded. A deeper weapon bay. Forward Cannon under the nose.

I will add pictures of the Eurofighter Sea plane from another topic of mine .

[ericr]

I like unconventional float planes or flying boats 

I tried fitting big floats to a 1/144 Constellation some time ago, for it to look a bit like a Cant Z.511

[Dizzyfugu]

I have collected the kits to build a C-130 Nimrod winged turbo jet version

The other way around would also be interesting!

What I find interesting is the flying boat with a retractable planing bottom - there had been several designs, ranging from fighters to sea patrol aircraft. And those concepts with integral boat hull that lay flat on the water when on the ground are interesting. I recently saw a pic of an Italian race flying boat that was designed that way - with a propeller in the nose and a water screw in the back. The engine would drive the screw until the thing would lift on hydrofoils out of the water - until the air prop would be clear. Then a gear would switch between screw and prop, and allow the thing to start ...theoretically.

[The Rat]

Horning in on my territory, eh?  Aw, go ahead, it'll be a blast watching it all come together. So far I've done flying boat versions of the Nimrod and Transall C-160, and turned a Boeing 727 into an Ekranoplan, so you have to know I'll be interested!  One project I have in mind is to rework the old Revell Tradewind so that it no longer has a hull, totally land-based. Some sort of weird penance for bashing the others I guess. 

[McColm]

Horning in on my territory, eh?  Aw, go ahead, it'll be a blast watching it all come together. So far I've done flying boat versions of the Nimrod and Transall C-160, and turned a Boeing 727 into an Ekranoplan, so you have to know I'll be interested!  One project I have in mind is to rework the old Revell Tradewind so that it no longer has a hull, totally land-based. Some sort of weird penance for bashing the others I guess. 

The Welsh Harp Sea Monster is my version of a Ekranoplan, I used the Airfix Short Sunderland for the fuselage, Revell Victor wing (not all of the wing just the stubs and not the tips), 1/200 B-58 Hustler cockpit glued where the front turret would have gone. Tail section off the Airfix Nimrod, three engines from a Heller C-135 stuck to the box section off a E-2C. Pictures of this are to be found on my FaceBook page;
Search under
Steven James McColm

There are pictures of the Neptune and Griffon powered Connie. (the Connie has under gone a repaint in mat black, decals from the Airfix RB-57).

[PR19_Kit]

I recently saw a pic of an Italian race flying boat that was designed that way - with a propeller in the nose and a water screw in the back. The engine would drive the screw until the thing would lift on hydrofoils out of the water - until the air prop would be clear. Then a gear would switch between screw and prop, and allow the thing to start ...theoretically.

That would have been the amazing Piaggio PC7, possibly the only vehicle ever designed that could have held the World Air Speed Record and Water Speed Record at the same time. If it had worked of course, which sadly it didn't. 

[jcf]

Pegna had many of the same problems with his P.c.7 as Burney had with his X-1 to X-3 back before
WWI, the biggest problem in both came at the moment of the switch of propulsion from water to
air-screw.

http://flyingmachines.ru/Site2/Crafts/Craft29516.htm

[jcf]

Tilting the prop/engine is another unusual tack to take.

Parnall Prawn
http://www.chew76.fsnet.co.uk/parnall/chap5.html


Mikhel'son MP
1930's Soviet torpedo attack aircraft designed to be carried by heavy bomber to the
combat zone, the parasite would be launched against the enemy and after launching
its torpedo would fly home and land in the water. The engine would tilt up for landing,
the radiator is mounted behind the pilot.


... and I've just noticed that you could use a 109E as the basis to build an MP.

[Dizzyfugu]

Yes, it's the PC.7! Great find, Kit.

Personally, I have been pondering with the idea of converting a simple Matchbox Do 18 into a WWII ekranoplan, just by leaving the main wings away and some other minor mods. It's in the very far back of my mind and project list, as it will be rather big (space is always an issue at home...  ) and IMHO not very sexy. But, who knows...

[Mossie]

I know Convair proposed several unusual configurations for Flying Boats, in trying to find them I netted something else windswept and interesting on Secret Projects:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,15375.msg151898.html#msg151898

This was a real proposal from Convair to convert Comet airliners into flying boats.  It's unusual in several aspects, it's a landplane conversion to a flying boat and the wings and intakes are so close to the water.

[PR19_Kit]

I can't believe that jet intakes THAT close to the water would ever work, but they look GREAT! 

[wuzak]

I can't believe that jet intakes THAT close to the water would ever work, but they look GREAT! 

I agree.

Imagine it on its takeoff run on choppy water, hits a wave and swallows a ton of sea water 

And they do look great.

[The Rat]

When I made my flying boat out of a Comet I cut the fuselage fore and aft of the wing and rotated the entire section 180°, the intakes were then well clear of the water.

[wuzak]

What I find interesting is the flying boat with a retractable planing bottom - there had been several designs, ranging from fighters to sea patrol aircraft.

Would this be it - the Blackburn B.20?



They also did a proposal for a fighter sea-plane, the B.40, also with a retractable hull.

I recently saw a pic of an Italian race flying boat that was designed that way - with a propeller in the nose and a water screw in the back. The engine would drive the screw until the thing would lift on hydrofoils out of the water - until the air prop would be clear. Then a gear would switch between screw and prop, and allow the thing to start ...theoretically.

In principle I think the idea is good. The water screw should accelerate the aircraft better than the air screw could.

[wuzak]

Dornier had tilting engines too.

The Do 26 used them (could tilt up 10°).

http://www.seawings.co.uk/images/photogallery/Do-26/Dornier_Do-26-11.jpg

Also used a tilting engine on the Do 10 land plane (for test purposes).