single-float plane, or flying boat? was : twin-hull flying boat or float plane

[ericr]

some time ago my attention was brought by our very excellent Tophe towards the astonishing Levasseur PL201 :
it has a quite unique structure : is it a twin-floats? or a twin hull flying boat? A quite typical occurrence of the French cultural exception.





It is anyway very tempting, although, by its shere existence, it can not anymore pretend to the quality of Whif.
This latter issue I solved by adopting a red livery, and by observing that in the absence of any known kit for it, I would go at it from bits and pieces in my spare parts boxes. So let it be considered a sports version, with smaller fuselage and bigger floats.

I actually had two Cams37 hulls, spare from the Azur kits for the E and Lai versions which still have the A hull on the sprues. Upon this I added wing parts from Curtiss Condor kits, and a bit of a fuselage from a NiD72, plus bits from forgotten origins ...

It started as quite an adventure, and it came out like this :

[TallEng]

I like that  it just needs air race markings...
Or better still "La Poste"  or what ever the French post is called

Regards
Keith

[rickshaw]

Looks like a Schneider Cup entry.  Seems to ooze speed.   

[Tophe]

  Wonderful! Congratulations ericr!

Though this is not typically French nor unique: the Dornier push-pull racer project of 1929 was similar,
see inside http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,4969.0.html

Thanks again for enjoying us with these colourful beauties!

[ericr]

thank you all, and thanx Tophe for the Dornier : also beautiful!

I was not aware that this so special arrangement (twin-hull flying boat or twin float plane?) existed in several occurrences.

It makes it even more interesting for me, I like diversity around a common approach.
The patent drawing you recently posted in your twin boom series is a third possibility!

[zenrat]

In my book if it floats and flies it's a boat plane.

I like this - both the OP pic and Eric's build.
Looking at the pic I reckon you could build something close in 1/72 using 2 scaleorama'd cut down 1/144 PBY hulls.

[eatthis]

twin engine push pull would be perfect for that layout   

[pyro-manic]

Love it! The control linkages to the tail would be rather complicated...

[ericr]

this russian design also has an arrangement with two floats with fins, but not linked by the stabilizers :



there exists a resin kit for that, which I did in yellow

[PR19_Kit]

Is it a glider? It appears not to have an engine....

[Tophe]

  Wonderful model, once more!
Kit, yes this is a "glider for special purpose", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikitin_PSN-2

[Tophe]

Still another one, for ericr...

see https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/USD83287.pdf

[ericr]

yes it is a glider : the soviets had another glider with a hull and floats, the PSN-PT for which Kora did a resin kit :

[ericr]

Still another one, for ericr...

ah, beautiful, thanks a lot! another twin-(float/hull) design!
with 2 and 1/2 push-pull (would we call it like that?  )

[Tophe]

Thanks ericr, you have enriched the P-38 Lightning family by several new versions (4 up to now, maybe more in the future)
see at the end of http://www.kristofmeunier.fr/index.htm