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4 unusual facts about Floatplane


Airship Italia

Floatplane / ski aircraft Junkers F 13 ”Turku” K-SALG (from Aero OY / Finnair) pilot: Lihr

Floatplane

Floatplanes have often been derived from land-based aircraft, with fixed floats mounted under the fuselage instead of retractable undercarriage (featuring wheels).

Nevertheless, air races devoted to floatplanes attracted a lot of attention during the 1920s and 1930s, most notably in the form of the Schneider Trophy.

Northwest Ranger

The aircraft featured a strut-braced high-wing, a six to eight seat enclosed cabin and optional fixed tricycle landing gear, conventional landing gear, floats or skis and a single engine in tractor configuration.


Battle of Rotterdam

Twelve specially-adapted floatplanes—Heinkel He 59Ds—would land on the Nieuwe Maas with two platoons of the 11th Company of the 16th Air Landing Regiment, plus four engineers and a three man company troop.

Besson MB.35

The Besson MB.35 was a French two-seat spotter and observation floatplane, designed by Besson.

Canadian Aviation Corps

1 Burgess-Dunne two-seater tailless swept-wing pusher floatplane built by Blair-Atholl Syndicate Limited of England

A Burgess-Dunne floatplane was purchased in the United States, shipped to Vermont and then flown to Valcartier, Quebec where it was taken apart, crated, and shipped to England.

Caproni Ca.100

Floatplane ex-I-DISC and MM56237 is in the Museo dell'Aeronautica Gianni Caproni, Trento.

Cody Floatplane

The Cody Floatplane (also referred to as the Cody Hydro-biplane) was designed and built by Samuel Franklin Cody as an entrant in the 1913 Daily Mail Circuit of Britain race, which offered a prize of £5,000.

Curtiss SO3C Seamew

A number of the SO3C-1s, not a floatplane, but a fixed undercarriage version, were ordered by the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm under the terms of Lend-Lease.

De Havilland DH.51

The first aircraft was exported to Australia in 1927, as a floatplane it capsized in Sydney Harbour in January 1931.

Fabre Hydravion

The Fabre Hydravion was a French experimental floatplane designed by Henri Fabre, notable as the first aircraft to take off from water under its own power.

Fairchild 24

Toronto Maple Leafs NHL Hockey player Bill Barilko and his dentist Henry Hudson disappeared on August 26, 1951, aboard Hudson's Fairchild 24 floatplane, flying from Seal River, Quebec.

Galiano Island

New in 2009, there is now regularly scheduled floatplane service from Seattle daily through Kenmore Air, either through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Kenmore Air Harbor and Seattle Lake Union.

Handley Page HP.14

The R/200 was designed in 1917 to meet an Admiralty requirement for a two-seat reconnaissance-fighter capable of operating either as a floatplane or from the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers, the flush deck HMS Argus and the part converted cruiser HMS Furious.

Hansa-Brandenburg

The firm became especially known for a highly successful series of floatplane fighters and reconnaissance aircraft that were used by the Imperial German Navy during the war.

Harbour Air Seaplanes

A small subsidiary, Harbour Air Malta, was set up in June 2007 and a DHC-3 Turbo Otter floatplane is permanently based in Valletta, Malta for scheduled flights to Gozo and sightseeing trips around the islands.

HMAS Patricia Cam

On 22 January 1943, while near the Wessel Islands off the north coast of the Northern Territory, Patricia Cam was attacked and sunk by a Japanese floatplane.

Izumo-class cruiser

In 1934, Izumo was equipped with a Nakajima E4N reconnaissance floatplane, which was launched by lowering from a crane on her aft deck to the ocean.

Japanese aircraft carrier Zuihō

Sixteen Aichi E13A floatplanes were launched by the heavy cruisers accompanying the carriers at 0430 to search for the Americans; the three carriers launched a follow up wave of 13 B5Ns at 0520.

Letov Š-28

Although Czechoslovakia was a land locked nation, a floatplane variant was necessary for a Czechoslovak anti-aircraft artillery training depot in the Bay of Kotor (now in Montenegro) and four were built as the Š-328v.

Murphy's War

When he discovers the U-Boat is hiding further up river, under the cover of the jungle, he sets about obsessively plotting his revenge to sink it by any means, including using a surviving Grumman J2F Duck floatplane from the Mount Kyle.

Okuda Shoji

Petty Officer Shoji Okuda, served as an aerial observer in the Imperial Japanese Navy on a floatplane Yokosuka E14Y that was launched from a long-range submarine aircraft carrier, the I-25.

Paul Schulte

In his Stinson Reliant floatplane Schulte flew through storm force winds and thick fog in order to rescue Cochard, and received a special blessing from Pope Pius XI for his services.

Pensacola and Fort Barrancas Railroad

The trestle across Bayou Grande, immediately north of Chevalier Field on NAS Pensacola, was featured in the 1957 MGM film "Wings of Eagles" starring John Wayne, with a steam-powered freight train crossing the span during a floatplane buzz job.

Percival Proctor

The final model of the line was the solitary Proctor 6 floatplane sold to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1946.

Piaggio P.7

Seeking to avoid the aerodynamic drag induced by floats in seaplanes of floatplane design, Ing Giovanni Pegna of the Piaggio company designed a very unusual seaplane to represent Italy in the 1929 Schneider Trophy race.

Port Victoria P.V.4

Although this was not built, Port Victoria was ordered to build a floatplane derivative for reconnaissance operations, being required to carry a Lewis gun and radio and to have an endurance of eight hours.

Tweedsmuir South Provincial Park

The park, or rather the original Tweedsmuir Provincial Park which included what is now Tweedsmuir North Provincial Park and Protected Area, was created in 1938 in the wake of a 1937 visit by floatplane and horseback to the Rainbow Range by John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir, who was then Governor-General of Canada.

W27

Hansa-Brandenburg W.27, prototype fighter floatplane developed in Germany during World War I

Yokosuka Ro-go Ko-gata

In 1917, Chikuhei Nakajima, chief designer of the Yokosuka Arsenal aircraft factory designed a new reconnaissance floatplane, with a prototype of the new design, powered by a 140 hp (104 kW) Salmson water-cooled radial engine, making its maiden flight early in 1918.


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