Alternative float planes, seaplane fighters on skis

[loupgarou]

Something like the F-107 layout.

Something like that?

A PREGNANT Sea Crusader??

[Weaver]

I've always thought the Jaguar has some potential here. It's high intakes would be fairly clear of spray and it's flat underside lends itself to having a hull grafted on.



Here I've flipped the rear fuselage behind the wing, but left the original spine beloe the fin in place and added a fillet to fill in the gap. Again, I've made no effort to sort the wings and tailplane out. If you wanted a delta wing, you could possibly extend the engine nacelles further back. Alternatively, you could keep the Jag wing and fit a high tail on the fin.

I have half a memory that somebody actually built a model along these lines....

[kerick]

Hmmmm.... I have a Mitsubushi F-1 laying around.... And some vacuform floats...... wanders off to the basement.

[jcf]

Something to bear in mind is what SARO found when further developing the seaplane fighter
concept, as performance and load requirements rose, so did airframe weight and 'density' which
made the boat hull designs no longer practical. Simply put a hull with enough displacement
to float the load was too large and draggy. So they went for low aspect ratio hydro-skis after
experimenting with skis, hydrofoils, and a combination of the two, 'skoils'. The P.121 was the
culmination of these tests and in turn led to the 'family' of P.127 concepts. According to SARO
the hydro-ski gear weighed less than regular wheeled landing gear.

[McColm]

The E.E. Lightning seems plausible, the undercarriage legs are long enough to be fitted with skis/floats. A T-tail arrangement. Could alter the RAF Launch as a support craft.