The Golden Age of Flying Boats 725~800 12 Last Hurrah 1 2
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www.PDHcenter.com www.PDHonline.org When Boats Had Wings Table of Contents Slide/s Part Description 1N/ATitle 2 N/A Table of Contents 3~86 1 At Home on the Water 87~177 2 19 Days From New York 178~284 3 Lessons Learned 285~356 4 What Dreams May Come 357~402 5 Transoceanic 403~487 6 Birth of an Era 488~544 7 Pioneering Flights 545~629 8 Wings Over the Pacific 630~652 9 Marine Air Terminal 653~679 10 Seaplanes at War 680~724 11 Spruce Goose The Golden Age of Flying Boats 725~800 12 Last Hurrah 1 2 Part 1 Distinctly Different At Home on the Water 3 4 There are two main types of seaplane: flying boats (often called “hull seaplanes”) and floatplanes. The bottom of a flying boat’s fuselage is its main landing gear. This is usually supplemented with smaller floats near the wingtips, called wing or “…When a seaplane or flying boat – the former having pontoons, the latter a boat- tip floats. Some flying boats have “sponsons,” which are short, wing-like like hull – is in the air, it operates exactly like a land plane. But on the water, it projections from the sides of the hull near the waterline. Their purpose is to handles differently. For instance, in taking off in a land machine, the pilot pushes stabilize the hull from rolling motion when the flying boat is on the water and they ahead the stick at the start to lift the tail. On a water machine, he does exactly the may also provide some aerodynamic lift in flight. Tip floats are sometimes known reverse, pulling it back to raise the forward part of the pontoons or hull out of as sponsons. The hull of a flying boat holds the crew, passengers and cargo; it water to lift it up on its hydroplane step as quickly as possible. The step is an has many features in common with the hull of a ship or boat. On the other hand, upward indentation, or notch, in the bottom of the float that prevents the water floatplanes typically are conventional landplanes that have been fitted with from sticking to the bottom of the hull, thus reducing resistance and increasing separate floats (sometimes called “pontoons”) in place of their wheels. The speed. On a big flying boat, it is sometimes hard to hold back the controls far fuselage of a floatplane is supported well above the water’s surface. Some flying enough to keep the tail down…In the early days, pilots of underpowered planes boats and/or floatplanes are equipped with retractable wheels for landing on dry often had difficulty in getting up on the step for a take-off run…In skimming along land. These aircraft are called amphibians. On an amphibious flying boat, the the water, a seaplane or flying boat rides on its step, sunk only a few inches below main wheels generally retract into the sides of the hull above the waterline. The the surface. So it is only the top ‘skin’ of the water that resists sidewise main wheels for amphibious float planes retract upward into the floats movement, and this is insufficient to do damage. For this reason, a seaplane is themselves, just behind the step. able to land without difficulty at right angles to a current…” Above: left-to-right: flying boat / floatplane / amphibious flying boat 5 Popular Science Monthly, December 1931 6 Above: flying boat hull components © J.M. Syken 1 www.PDHcenter.com www.PDHonline.org “Another thought that influenced my desire to build a water plane was that the need for speedy transportation over water routes was greater than over land routes. Railroads made fast time on land; steamships were slow in comparison.” Glenn H. Curtiss, 1927 Left: Glenn H. Curtis in France in 1909 for a flying “…the flying boat with its large surplus of buoyancy has all the advantages of a motorboat competition (he won). Frenchman Alphonse Penauld filed the first patent for a flying machine and a flying machine combined. It is as seaworthy as any motorboat of its size, and flies as with a boat hull in 1876, but Austrian Wilhelm well as any aeroplane of equal proportions…When the throttle is opened, the machine Kress is credited with building the first sea- gradually climbs on top of the water, and after the first hundred feet is planing on the water plane; Drachenflieger, in 1898 (its two 30 hp Daimler much the same as a hydroplane. In this manner it runs on the water until a speed of 45 or 50 engines were inadequate for take-off and it later miles an hour is attained, when a slight movement of the elevating device will bring it into sank when one of its two floats collapsed). On June the air…The standard machine flies at about 60 miles an hour. To alight, the operator simply 6th 1905, another Frenchman; Gabriel Voisin, took off sails along close over the surface of the water and throttles his engine. The boat descends andlandedontheRiver Seine with a towed kite glider on floats. The first of his unpowered flights until it touches the water, and if the engine is kept throttled, the boat glides over the water was 150 yards. Using the information gained, he until it has lost its speed, when it settles down and once more becomes an ordinary approached pioneer French aviator Louis Bleriot to motorboat. The flying boat used has a hull 25 ft. long by 2.5 ft. beam, it has 250 sq. ft. of design a powered aircraft, but they were unable to wing surface and has a carrying capacity of 600 lbs. It will carry fuel supply for a flight of achieve take-off speed. American pioneering 400 miles. It is fitted with dual control, so that either operator or passenger, who sit side-by- aviator Glenn Curtiss modified his “June Bug” for side, may assume full control of the machine…” water in 1908 but, like Voisin and Bleriot, was also Glenn H. Curtiss, January 1913 unable to overcome the hydrodynamic drag on the 7 8 Left: front/side elevation/s of the famous Curtiss Model F flying boat (1913) seaplane’s floats. Right: Curtiss Model F on the water To help protect your privacy, PowerPoint prevented this external picture from being automatically downloaded. To download and display this picture, click Options in the Message Bar, and then click Enable external content. On March 28th 1910, Frenchman Henri Fabre successfully flight-tested his powered hydravion, a “trimaran” floatplane (left) which he named Le Canard (“The Duck”). Fabre’s first successful take-off and landing by a powered seaplane inspired other avitiators and he didesigne d“Fa bre floa ts ” for several other flyers. The firs t hdhydroaerop lane “…Glenn Curtiss began to experiment with the precursor of the hydroaeroplane and flying competition was held in Monaco in March 1912 featuring aircraft using floats from Fabre, boat…Curtiss was building light pontoons on which the ‘June Bug,’ renamed the ‘Loon,’ was Curtiss and others. This led to the first scheduled seaplane passenger services at Aix-les- mounted. Safety was one of the things he was seeking; landing on water seemed safer than Bains using a five-seat Sanchez-Besa starting August 1st 1912. In 1911-12, François landing on the ground. If flying were to develop into a world-wide means of transportation, Denhaut constructed the first seaplane with a hull using various designs to then there must be found some way to alight on water instead of on the few cleared and give hydrodynamic lift at take-off. Its first successful flight was on April 13th 1912. leveled spots of ground available. Glenn Curtiss was looking far ahead. But the ‘Loon’ did Throughout 1910 and 1911, Curtiss continued his floatplane experiments with a larger not rise from the water. It weighed, with its pontoons, nearly a thousand pounds. The version of his successful Curtiss Model D land-plane using a larger central float and combination of weight and skin friction was too much for its 40-h.p. engine. It made twenty- sponsons. Combining floats with wheels, he made the first amphibian flights in February five miles an hour on the water, and observers thought at times it was actually clear. Only 1911 and was awarded the first Collier Trophy (right) for aviation achievement (originally against a strong head wind, however, was there a chance of really getting it into the air, and Glenn Curtiss was not yet ready to attempt to fly in a wind. Nor was anybody else…” named the “Aero Club of America Trophy”). From 1912, his experiments with a hulled Popular Science Monthly, May 1927 seaplane resulted in the 1913 ”Model E” and ”Model F” which he called “flying-boats”. In 9 10 Above: rare photograph of Glenn Curtiss’ “Loon” (the “June Bug” on floats), which failed to February 1911, the U.S. Navy took delivery of its first airplane; a Curtiss Model E and become airborne during tests in 1908 soon tested landings and take-offs from ships using the Curtiss Model D. “I had no idea of going into the air at that time, though I knew it was possible. Nobody had ever risen from the surface of the water. But this machine handled so beautifully that my action in elevating the plane was more instinctive than intentional. One second I was skimming the surface of the bay and in another I found myself in the air. It rose with a suddenness and ease that surprised me.