- 2 days ago
For educational purposes
By the 1930s, flying boats – massive, airborne ocean liners – opened up global routes for passenger service.
While the floatplanes entering the Schneider Trophy races were the fastest, most innovative flying machines in existence.
Featured Aircraft:
- Sikorsky VS-44 flying boat
- Supermarine S.6 racing seaplane
- de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver floatplane
- de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter
By the 1930s, flying boats – massive, airborne ocean liners – opened up global routes for passenger service.
While the floatplanes entering the Schneider Trophy races were the fastest, most innovative flying machines in existence.
Featured Aircraft:
- Sikorsky VS-44 flying boat
- Supermarine S.6 racing seaplane
- de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver floatplane
- de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:01Hi, I'm Neil Armstrong. Join me for an adventure through time.
00:53I'm Neil Armstrong.
00:56Soon after the first land-based aircraft flights, waterborne flying machines were developed.
01:03It made sense. After all, two-thirds of the Earth's surface is water, and it all became
01:09a potential landing field. Some were massive, the largest aircraft of their day. And small
01:17racing seaplanes were, for a time, the fastest and most innovative flying machines in existence.
01:24In their heyday, flying boats and seaplanes showed promise as the craft of the future.
01:46Shortly after the Wright brothers' first flight, experiments began in France with float-equipped
01:52aircraft. Success came first to Frenchman Henri Fabray. In 1910, he took off and landed on water
01:59in his hydravian. The next year, American pioneer Glenn Curtis made his first takeoff from water
02:05in a pusher biplane. In the following years, Curtis would become the world's premier builder
02:10of seaplanes. Soon, other countries followed the lead of Fabray in France and Curtis in
02:16the United States with their own fledgling seaplane industries. The basic problem facing waterborne
02:22craft is that they must float as well as move along the water at near-flying speeds. The first floats
02:29were flat, creating tremendous suction that kept the airplanes literally stuck to the water.
02:35It was Glenn Curtis who, in 1912, developed the stepped hull to break the water suction during takeoff.
02:42This design has been used on the floats and hulls of every successful seaplane ever since. Curtis' innovation
02:50made flying boats and floatplanes practical. Soon, they were everywhere. Floatplanes were so named
02:58because they ride on floats, which are mounted below the wings or the fuselage. With flying boats,
03:03the fuselage actually floats in the water on a boat hull. Curtis intended to cross the Atlantic
03:10in his flying boat, the America. But war intervened. During World War I, water-based aircraft were used
03:19extensively by both sides. Their mission was primarily reconnaissance, but they also dropped bombs
03:26ships and even launched torpedoes. The war, and in particular the threat posed by U-boats, spurred on the
03:42development of larger flying boats that could carry even more weapons. More important was the notion
03:48that if the seaplane could fly across the Atlantic, it would not have to be shipped disassembled in
03:53transport ships, which were vulnerable to the U-boats.
04:11By the end of the First World War, the premier aircraft was the NC-1 for Navy Curtis No. 1.
04:18It was rushed into
04:19production for the war effort. Its first flight was in October 1918. The war ended just over a month later.
04:27The first four NC aircraft were, literally, boats with speedboat-like hulls instead of a fuselage.
04:33They were called Nancy boats, and the imposing image they made in flight belied what a nightmare
04:39they were to fly. In calm air, their rock-solid stability was a joy. Flying them in turbulence,
04:47however, required the brute force of two pilots. In May 1919, three Nancys took off from Rockaway Naval
04:56Air Station in New York to attempt the first Atlantic crossings. Two came down in the open ocean. One sank,
05:03and one taxied 200 miles to the Azores. The third arrived safely in Lisbon, then Plymouth, England.
05:09It had taken 54 hours of flying over 24 days, but they had flown the Atlantic. To accomplish the flight,
05:18the Navy had strung a line of ships every 50 miles for support, and still only one aircraft had made
05:24it.
05:25Although it was a crowning achievement, transatlantic passenger service would not be practical for
05:30another decade. For shorter distances, float planes quickly demonstrated their practicality.
05:36Scheduled passenger flights served Wall Street in downtown New York City, and locations throughout
05:42the world. The limited number of hard surface runways made waterborne craft attractive,
05:47and over the following decades, floats were added to an incredible variety of airplanes,
05:52from the GB to the DC-3.
06:01By the 1930s, the airliner of the future was the flying boat. Airlines used flying boats extensively,
06:09considered the ultimate in luxury. Many had Pullman-style sleeping berths and fully-set,
06:16formal meals. Their big hulls allowed passengers a degree of room and comfort unheard of in most land
06:24planes. By the end of the 1930s, regular airline and mail service crossed the oceans. A flight across
06:32the Pacific was an adventure, with stops at exotic locations like Honolulu and Midway Island.
06:48The German Dornier DOX flying boat was the world's largest aircraft in its time. In 1929,
06:55it set a record by carrying aloft 10 crew members and 159 passengers, nine of whom were stowaways.
07:02Inside its massive hull, the DOX had three deck levels, a bar, smoking and reading rooms, a bathroom,
07:09a lounge and sleeping quarters, and a kitchen and dining room. All this luxury had its price,
07:15however. The DOX burned about 400 gallons of fuel an hour, and its altitude ceiling was about 1600 feet.
07:26The twin-hulled Italian flying boat, the Savoia Marchetti S-55, captured world attention with its
07:33records for altitude, distance, and speed. In 1933, 24 of these open cockpit planes flew in formation from
07:42Italy to Chicago for the World's Fair, a journey of 6,000 miles in under 49 flight hours.
07:50The airlines of the 1920s and 30s used flying boats extensively. Pan American Airlines, in particular,
07:57saw the flying boat as the vehicle that would open up mail and passenger routes, not only between
08:02North America and Europe, but to the Orient and South America. Pan Am, under the leadership of Juan
08:09Trip, began to pioneer the Caribbean and then South America. They acquired mail routes to Havana and
08:15across the Andes to Buenos Aires, primarily flying Sikorsky S-38 amphibians. Long range aircraft with
08:23bigger payloads were desperately needed for the Miami to Rio route. Sikorsky built the S-40, which had
08:30accommodations for S-32, and the S-42 flying boat. In 1931, Charles and Ann Lindbergh flew to Alaska,
08:38Siberia, and Japan, then returned to New York, surveying a northern route to the Orient for Pan Am.
08:45But the political climate prevented the route's establishment. The alternative was to use U.S.
08:51territories to operate from San Francisco to Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam, and Manila. Pan Am asked aircraft
08:58manufacturers for a flying boat that could fly 2,500 miles against a 30 mile per hour headwind and
09:05accommodate a payload of mail or passengers. Martin aircraft responded with the M-130. It could do all
09:12that Pan Am had requested and more. Martin delivered the first M-130 in October 1935. It became known as
09:21the
09:21China Clipper. It was followed by the Philippine Clipper and the Hawaii Clipper. The China Clipper
09:28inaugurated the first Trans-Pacific Mail Service in November 1935. Paying customers began taking the trip
09:35a year later. The hull was an advanced design. It used stub wings, called C-wings, to provide buoyancy.
09:43Passengers traveled in style and comfort. The crew, many of whom had cut their flying teeth in cold and
09:49noisy open cockpits, found the Clippers a spacious, luxurious alternative. Nevertheless, flying over long
09:56stretches of water with no recognizable terrain and only primitive radio navigation aids made Clipper
10:02flying a challenge. Though pilots got the flying boats on and off the water, it was the navigator's skill
10:09that made the flight safe. In 1938, Pan Am took delivery of six Boeing 314 Clippers. With names such as
10:17the Yankee Clipper, these flying boats were scheduled for routes over the North Atlantic. With a reputation for
10:22reliability, the Boeing Clippers also performed well on the San Francisco to Hong Kong route. Flying boats
10:29had become a profitable business for moving mail and passengers over water. We're here at the restoration
10:36of an S-44 flying boat with Ralph Lightfoot, who was an engineer from the flying boat days. That's correct.
10:45That's correct. Tell me about these flying boats. Well, when I first came to work at Sikorsky in 1935,
10:51this S-44 was still pencil and paper. But I worked on the design of it, checking out the weights,
11:00going into the wind tunnel and testing it in the wind tunnel, trying to get the flying boat to be
11:07bigger and better than anything that had ever been built before. Well, clearly the hull is of utmost
11:15importance in a flying boat. Oh, it most certainly is. For one thing, it has to float. But one of
11:21the
11:21things we found was that water would tend to suck up around the side of the ship or from here
11:28and suck
11:29the whole thing down back into the water. Yeah. So we found that if we could put in what we
11:33call a step,
11:35like in here, that would immediately let air flow down into the back because that didn't have as much
11:40resistance in the water. And this particular section, the flat edge of the step would give
11:46a good amount of lift at that point. Uh-huh. Did you have problems with the leakage?
11:52No. It would be a problem. But over all the years of developing flying boats and metal hulls,
11:59we had learned ways of riveting. It's what we call wet riveting. Underneath here, between the skins
12:05and the framework, there is some tape, like rubber tape. It isn't rubber tape, it's plastic tape. So
12:12that took care of the ceiling for the water. Not only that, having developed the process for this,
12:17the fuel tanks were in the wings and they were made the same way, carrying fuel.
12:22Because they get a double payoff. You get a double payoff.
12:25These large windows were where the passengers were, including up into here. And then up and forward
12:32underneath the cockpit were the cruise quarters and the galley. So that you could cook your own meals
12:39and serve them while the passengers were sitting back there in luxurious comfort. I guess they had
12:44two crews because these were... Oh yeah, two crews. Two crews. So you had to have cruise quarters up forward
12:50so that one could be sleeping, hopefully, while the other guys were flying. At the outbreak of war in
12:57Europe, flying boats were pressed into service by the militaries. The British and U.S. Navy used former
13:04Pan Am Clippers for cargo transport and evacuation. A variety of seaplanes and flying boats were used for
13:11patrol, reconnaissance, rescue and bombing. Germany experimented with rocket-assisted takeoff to make
13:17larger payloads possible.
13:24The war produced another development. Runways were constructed quickly all over the world.
13:31With many aircraft now capable of reliable long-range flight, seaplanes were a slow and inefficient
13:37alternative. Following the Second World War, the seaplanes were returned to their civilian owners.
13:43But by then, the heyday of the flying boat had passed into history.
13:51At one time, the seaplane was the fastest machine in the air. In 1929, a Supermarine S6 like this one
14:01won the Schneider Trophy race for seaplane racers with a top speed of over 328 miles per hour.
14:08The Schneider Trophy races pushed the development of faster, more efficient seaplanes. But in pushing
14:16their speed, they became difficult to handle and dangerous to fly. Pilots fought with instability at
14:23high speeds, rough water takeoffs and engines pushed to the limit. Racing seaplane pilots were a unique and
14:32skilled breed of aviator. Early seaplane designers competed for the Schneider Trophy, spurred on by
14:41national pride. From its beginning in 1912 until its conclusion in 1931, the tournament for seaplanes
14:48attracted worldwide interest and the greatest racing pilots of the era. The public's imagination was
14:55captivated by the roar of the V-12 engines and the acrobatic flying. The combination of speed and extra
15:02drag from their huge floats made the seaplanes dangerous to fly. Many of them crashed. The
15:08designers of these early float planes pioneered the use of fuel additives, high horsepower engines,
15:14cantilever wing construction, and aircraft streamlining. Lieutenant Jimmy Doolittle won the 1925
15:20race with a 600 horsepower curtis r3 c2 that averaged over 230 miles an hour. An italian entry, the maki
15:28m39
15:29powered by a fiat engine took the prize in 1926. The british supermarine s6 that won the last schneider
15:36five years later averaged over 340 miles per hour and was powered by a 2350 horsepower rolls-royce engine.
15:46Its designer R.J. Mitchell later used the experience he gained from the schneider races to design the spitfire.
15:59With the coming of the jet age, the seaplane took on the form of the future. The Convair sea dart
16:05was an
16:06experimental fighter envisioned to protect american shores using coastal waters as a runway.
16:14Its first flight was in 1953. The sea dart was the first delta wing seaplane and the first seaplane
16:23to fly at supersonic speeds. Power was provided by two Westinghouse turbojet engines.
16:38The sea dart did not have a conventional boat hull. Instead, on takeoff and landing, it rode on the water
16:44on retractable hydro skis. The sea dart project was cancelled after only four aircraft were built.
17:01The Martin Seamaster was a four-jet engine swept wing flying boat. The Seamaster prototype first flew
17:08in 1955. Its primary mission was to be mine laying and reconnaissance. But two prototypes crashed and only
17:17three production aircraft were built. The program was abandoned in 1960.
17:33Japan, France and Russia have continued to build large turboprop flying boats,
17:38which patrol their shores and provide search and rescue.
17:45The Japanese PSX flying boat solves several problems facing modern seaplanes.
17:50It's able to take off and land in a short distance at a very low speed, about 45 knots.
17:56This reduces the chance of damage from water impact during landing and during rough seas.
18:08The PSX flying boats also make use of a unique streamline hull design. Grooves, called spray suppressors,
18:15reduce the spray that could damage propellers during takeoff and landing.
18:21The Russians also continue to operate twin turboprop amphibians, which hold a number of world records,
18:27including an altitude record in their class.
18:37The main function of water-based aircraft today is as special use aircraft, particularly in remote areas
18:44with no airstrips. Neil discussed the techniques of flying floats with Kenmore air pilot Bill Whitney.
19:01What as pilot, seaplane pilot, do you worry about in surface conditions for landing?
19:08Well, of course, if it's too rough, you know, that's always a, you know, a concern.
19:13Big waves, you mean?
19:15Big waves, if it's in an area that's not protected, you know.
19:19Oftentimes, you can't land where you want to. You need to find a more protected area, more sheltered area,
19:24that sort of thing.
19:26Now, these floats would make the best conditions when you're on perfectly smooth water or very rough?
19:32Well, the best for takeoff and landing would be a little bit of wind with a little bit of chop
19:38on the water.
19:39Neil flew Kenmore's De Havilland Otter, a turboprop-powered float plane
19:43that can accommodate up to 10 passengers.
19:46Water rudders at the rear of the floats control the float plane's direction while it taxis at low speeds.
19:52The air rudder provides control at high speeds on the water.
19:56Takeoffs are usually done into the wind, so crosswinds are not a concern.
20:22A float plane should land into the wind at the slowest possible speed.
20:27Pilots can determine wind direction by watching for whatever signs are available, flags, smokestacks,
20:33wind streaks in the water, even ducks who pretty consistently head into the wind when they're on the water.
20:46Step taxiing is an essential float plane maneuver.
20:49It's useful for covering long distances on the water, and it's an important part of both takeoff and landing.
21:05Although they never enjoyed the widespread success that some predicted, seaplanes do have unique uses,
21:13and they're fun to fly.
21:15Join us again next time for First Flights.
21:18Let's do it.
21:20Thanks for listening.
21:21Bye.
21:28Bye.
21:38Bye.
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