Seaplane
A
seaplane is an
aircraft designed to take off and land (correctly, though less commonly termed, "alight") upon water.
These aircraft are occasionally called
hydroplanes, based on usage in several
Romance languages, which is rare in
English.
There are two types of
seaplane: the
floatplane and the
flying boat.
* A floatplane has slender
pontoons mounted under the fuselage. Two floats are common, but many float planes of
World War II had a single float under the main fuselage and two small floats on the wings. Only the "floats" of a floatplane normally come into contact with water. The fuselage remains above water. Some small land aircraft can be modified to become float planes and vice-versa.
* In a flying boat, the main source of
buoyancy is the fuselage, which acts much like a
ship's hull in the water. Most flying boats have small floats mounted on their wings to keep them stable.
It should be noted that some people feel that the term "seaplane" should only be used to refer to aircraft with floats in place of landing gear, with a flying boat being a distinct type in its own right. For convenience, the above definitions and assumption that flying boats are a type of seaplane are used herein.
An
amphibious aircraft can take off and land both on conventional runways and on water, whereas a true seaplane can only take off and land on water. There are amphibious flying boats and amphibious float planes, as well as some hybrid designs, e.g., a seaplane with retractable floats. However, most modern seaplanes are amphibious and of traditional design.
Numerous modern civilian aircraft have a floatplane variant, usually for light duty transportation to lakes and other remote areas. Most of these are offered as third-party modifications under a
supplemental type certificate (STC), although there are several aircraft manufacturers that build floatplanes from scratch, and a few that continue to build
flying boats. Many older flying boats remain in service for fire-fighting duty, and
Chalk's Ocean Airways still operates a fleet of flying boats in passenger service. Purely water-based seaplanes have largely been supplanted by amphibious aircraft.
Seaplanes can only take off and land on water with little or no
wave action and, like other aircraft, have trouble in extreme weather. The size of waves a given design can withstand depends on, among other factors, the aircraft's size, hull or float design, and its weight. Flying boats can typically handle rougher water and are generally more stable than floatplanes while on the water.
Rescue organizations, such as
coast guards, are among the largest modern operators of seaplanes due to their efficiency and their ability to both spot and rescue survivors. Land-based airplanes cannot rescue survivors, and many helicopters are limited in their capacity to carry survivors and in their fuel efficiency compared to fixed-wing aircraft.
Seaplanes are also often used in remote areas such as
Alaska (which has the highest per capita number of floatplanes in the United States) and the
Canadian outback, especially in areas with a large number of
lakes convenient for takeoff and landing. They may operate on a
charter basis or provide scheduled service. Many residents of these remote areas operate their own personal floatplanes, too.
Within the
European Union,
Greece is the only country that uses seaplanes to connect its many
islands to the mainland. In the Western Hemisphere, there are numerous seaplane operators in the
Caribbean Sea that offer service within or between island groups.
Early development was carried out at
Hammondsport,
New York by
Glenn Curtiss who had beaten
Alexander Graham Bell and others in the
Aerial Experiment Association.
|
Seaplane airbase at Natal (Rio Grande do Norte), Brazil. |
During
World Wars I and
II, many
navies used seaplanes for
reconnaissance and
anti-submarine warfare. Most
battleships carried one or two catapult-launched seaplanes to spot targets over the horizon for the big guns, or to fight off enemy reconnaissance planes. The failure of the
German battleship Bismarck's
Arado 196 seaplane to hunt down a
PBY Catalina reconnaissance aircraft is said to have contributed to the ship's demise.
In the post war period the military uses of seaplanes were much reduced. The British and the US experimented with jet powered seaplane fighters such as the
Saunders-Roe SR.A/1.
Seaplane tenders, such as
HMS Engadine, fell out of use after the
1950s with the general demise of the seaplane, the advent of the first stable, fully-controllable
helicopter, and continued development of the modern
aircraft carrier.
Seaplanes are now mostly considered obsolete for military purposes.
*
Amphibious aircraft*
Flying boat*
List of flying boats and seaplanes*
Auxiliary cruiser
