Flying Boat and Seaplane
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lying boats and seaplanes are airplanes that can take off and land on water. A seaplane, or floatplane, looks like a regular airplane. Instead of landing gear with wheels, however, it has a pair of canoe-shaped floats to keep the seaplane afloat.
A flying boat is a type of seaplane, but it has a boat-shaped hull, or body, which rests in the water. It has floats fitted on struts beneath the wings to provide extra balance. An amphibian is a seaplane that also has wheels for landing at an airfield.
Most flying boats and seaplanes are high-winged designs, sometimes using a “gull-wing” V-shape. The shape places the engines as high above the water as possible, clear of spray. To take off and land, the aircraft skim over the water.
The Age of Water-Based Aircraft
For a time, seaplanes were the fastest planes in the world. In 1931 the British Supermarine S6B held the world’s air speed record, at 406.9 miles per hour (654.8 kilometers per hour). Small seaplanes were carried on battleships for reconnaissance missions. The seaplane was launched by catapult; on return, it landed on the ocean’s surface and was lifted up out of the water by a crane on
the ship. Today, helicopters do the same job on many naval ships.
A flying boat was bigger than a regular seaplane-some were very large. In some situations it was safer than a land plane because, in an emergency, it could land on the ocean and float until rescue arrived. Flying boats were very popular in the 1930s for carrying passengers. The big cabin of a flying boat offered a high standard of luxury to passengers, who could go ashore when the plane landed, spend a night in a hotel, and resume their journey next day.
In World War II (1939-1945), flying boats were used for ocean patrols and for hunting enemy submarines. They also pioneered new air routes across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. After World War II, land planes got faster. More
airports were built in cities-and it was between cities that most air passengers wanted to travel. By 1950, the age of the flying boat had ended.