What if the air and water travel were interchanged? What if boats could actually fly? Sounds impossible. Right? But in reality too they can. There are some boats that actually took to the sky! Flying boats, as they were rightfully called, are fixed wing seaplanes with a hull, allowing them to land on water. They usually lack any sort of landing gear which allows them to be operated on land. The aircraft gets its buoyancy from specially designed fuselage which can float.
Around 1930s, two distinct types of planes emerged – landplanes and seaplanes which differed in the aspect of landing. In the present day, this might not seem like an important factor. But back then, many cities did not even have proper runways, let alone airports. So flying boats had a clear advantage here since they could land anywhere in the water. The German version of the flying boat, Dornier Do X, had wing-like protrusions from fuselage, called sponsons, to stabilize it on the water without the need for wing-mounted outboard floats and was powered by 12 engines. There were many other variations of this wonder, most of them used for military purpose, too.
If that was the case, then why don’t we see any of these boats floating in the sky today? Why do we travel via conventional airplanes, and not something that has a better chance of saving our lives in case of an emergency?
Post World War 2,there were two entities that took to the sky – the first jet airliner(which carried passengers) and flying boats,more specifically Britain’s enormous Saunders-Roe Princess.Passengers could dine in a restaurant,relax in a lounge and have their own private suites during their travel via the Princess,added to the previous advantages of water landing. Flying boats seem like a clear winner, right? Sadly,the answer is no.
Over the course of the war, thousands of new airports with long,concrete runways were constructed all around the world. Majority of the airlines made the switch to land based airliners. The flying boats required strong, bulky fuselage to land on water which made them less aerodynamic and difficult to pressurize. The pilots required special training since they were way more challenging to fly. Also,landing in water led to faster corrosion.Even British Overseas Airways Cooperation(BOAC) opted for the jet powered airliner. Meanwhile, reliability, speed and range of land-based airlines increased, giving the flying boat companies a run for their money. It was almost impossible for the flying boats to compete with the new civilian jet aircraft like De Havilland Comet and Boeing 707. Citing all these reasons, flying boats saw no buyers and were eventually sold for scrap as they corroded away in the storage.
In the present day, these flying boats have been replaced by seaplanes with floats and amphibious aircraft with wheels. Some of them include ShinMaywa US-2, designed for air-sea rescue work; Canadair CL-215 and its successor Bombardier 415, designed for forest fire suppression; ICON A5, an amphibious aircraft in the light-sport class.
Will these enormous beasts, much ahead of their time make a comeback? Or be shelved forever? Only time will tell. For now, there doesn’t seem to be advancement in this field.
Article by S S Rakshitha 3rd year Mechanical Engineering
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