Seaknight & M16, red : primary seaplanes

[PR19_Kit]

Being VERY pedantic, that's not a Sea King, it's a Pelican. 

But Sea Kings can and do float, see below. And they have a central hull with two smaller auxiliary floats too. The Pelican has sponsons rather than floats.

[ericr]

Being VERY pedantic, that's not a Sea King, it's a Pelican. 

But Sea Kings can and do float, see below. And they have a central hull with two smaller auxiliary floats too. The Pelican has sponsons rather than floats.

ah yes indeed, I was a bit quick in my reply.
Others with a hull include the french Super Frelon and also the russian Mi-14 :
this one unfortunately only exists in 1/72 in hard to find conversion kits?

[ericr]

recently a discussion about twin-seaters reminded me of the Meteor Prone

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,40060.msg669796.html#msg669796

and so I was induced in acquiring the MPM kit, a lovely one, but although the topic is surprising enough to be nearly whif, I felt it could be improved, not in this case by fitting longer wings (which it does deserve, honestly  ), but by floatplanization.

A motivation was the availability of the AR196 1/48 floats from the kit above : I considered putting both, but that would have looked a bit heavy, so I preferred a central-float layout, like this :





and I noticed the clever bottom-window for the front crew, now nicely in front of the float for full visibility :

[Captain Canada]

Love that prone Meteor ! Looks super sleek all red like that ! Nice one.

[PR19_Kit]

That's VERY different ericr, terrific build. 

[Weaver]

If you'd described that Meteor to me without pictures I'd have said it wouldn't work, but now I see it in the "flesh" it absolutely does. You have a good eye Sir! 

That TinTin picture made me think about those very early steamships that had steam AND sail: imagine one of those with a very early "box kit" style aeroplane on a catapult...

[NARSES2]

If you'd described that Meteor to me without pictures I'd have said it wouldn't work, but now I see it in the "flesh" it absolutely does. You have a good eye Sir! 

Summed up my feelings exactly, and if ever an aircraft screamed out for a pair of eyes and a smiley face 

[ericr]

thanks all!

as I said, I had my questionings and doubts, but finally the central-float solution looked good,
very especially in the prone long-nosed version : a real match, in fact 

[ericr]

and now for something completely different

(but still in the topic of course)

Sometime ago a discussion reminded me of the possibility of three-seater P38, combining Droop and P38M

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,30511.msg681762.html#msg681762

where I learned there actually was one :



so I was fired, and went out to find a P38M by Revell



to which I could not resist adding ... guess what? ... floats : coming from the classical Airfix Ar196,
and the nose comes from some larger glass-nosed aircraft (Dassault Flamant? Pembroke?), so it required to use some putty but it ended up not too badly.

and so here it goes, in yellow :

[Tophe]

Inspired by your prone float meteor, here are similar mustangs,thank you:

[zenrat]

That TinTin picture made me think about those very early steamships that had steam AND sail: imagine one of those with a very early "box kite" style aeroplane on a catapult...

Like the Langley Aerodrome?
It was launched by catapulting from the roof of a houseboat.

wiki page here

[Captain Canada]

Beauty. Looks lovely like that. Always been intrigued by the glass nosed P-38s.

[Tophe]

Yes, your yellow 3-seater P-38M Marine-Lightning is beautiful, thanks ericr!

[ericr]

That TinTin picture made me think about those very early steamships that had steam AND sail: imagine one of those with a very early "box kite" style aeroplane on a catapult...

Like the Langley Aerodrome?
It was launched by catapulting from the roof of a houseboat.

that makes me feel like putting a catapult (the 1/72 ones from the Hasegawa floatplane kits) on a just larger 1/72 boat
a lovely base for dioramas ...

[ericr]

That TinTin picture made me think about those very early steamships that had steam AND sail: imagine one of those with a very early "box kite" style aeroplane on a catapult...

Like the Langley Aerodrome?
It was launched by catapulting from the roof of a houseboat.

that makes me feel like putting a catapult (the 1/72 ones from the Hasegawa floatplane kits) on a just larger 1/72 boat
a lovely base for dioramas ...

this is also an example of "minimal" seaplane carrier :