Lockheed-Savoia seaplanes

[Tophe]

The Savoia S.55 was famous with a group of these twin-hull seaplanes travelling from Italy to America. The Savoia-Marchetti SM.66 replaced the 2 push-pull engines by 3 pusher engines (and the SM.77 by 3 other engines, while the SM.88 was a completely independent twin-boom landplane).
When in 1940 the Canadian Lumberjack (civilian) Navy decided to order seaplanes to reach lakes in the far forest, they asked Savoia-like-ones to the Lockheed company, that proposed 3designs: P-38S-55, P-38S-66, P-38S-77. I will show them as drawings soon, not building them sorry.

[Tophe]

Here is the first proposal:

[Tophe]

Second proposal:

[Tophe]

Third proposal:

[PR19_Kit]

Yes, three engines makes them much more 'Italian' of course. 

[Tophe]

Yes, while... the Italian famous 3rd engine is usually a nose engine.
But this is a good idea for a 4th proposal:

Just needing a 2nd ladder for the pilot to climb in the cockpit

[Tophe]

Yes, while... the Italian famous 3rd engine is usually a nose engine.

A nose engine appeared also on the 5th proposal, that had just 2 engines:

[Tophe]

Of couse, the 6th proposal was the 66 with a nose engine (66N), turning push-pull:

[Tophe]

Pilots argued that in the Northern forest, when the autumn is coming, cold, water turns to ice on the borders of lakes and a short take-off is required, needing much more power (at the expense of range, OK). So a 6-engined version was designed:

[kerick]

Also needs the extra power for take off with all those lumberjack tools! Lots of saws and axes.

[Tophe]

Thanks for this helping me to find reasons, which means I am not (completely) crazy...

[Caveman]

But Tophe, they are all symmetrical! 

[Tophe]

You are very right: tomorrow I will look in the Lockheed archives and probably I will find asymmetrical versions. Thanks!

[Tophe]

In parallel to the 6 symmetric proposals were 6 asymmetric proposals. This did not come from Blomi e Vossi but from Lockheed facing the anger of Canadian Lumberjack Navy, saying "it is too expensive". The Lockheed answer, this way, was "yes, we can design cheaper versions, but look at them...":

[Tophe]

Very minimum price: