X-Nico

unusual facts about flying boats



Gatow

RAF Gatow has the unlikely distinction of having been home during the Berlin Airlift to the only known operational use of flying boats within central Europe, when the RAF used Short Sunderlands to transport salt from Hamburg to Berlin, landing on the Havelsee lake.


see also

Donnet

Founded as Donnet-Denhaut by Jérôme Donnet (formerly of Donnet-Lévêque) and François Denhaut at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1914, the firm manufactured a highly successful line of patrol flying boats (the Donnet-Denhaut flying boat series) for the French Navy.

Donnet-Denhaut flying boat

Apart from French Navy service, DD flying boats were operated by the United States Navy in Europe, flying from Île-Tudy and Dunkirk to protect convoys from submarines.

Dornier Rs.I

Claudius Dornier made a distinct impression with Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin while working on the still-born giant civil airship in 1913, who promptly set him up as chief designer of the Zeppelin-Werke at Lindau, responsible for building large patrol flying boats.

Douglas XP3D

In 1933, the United States Navy placed orders with both Douglas and Consolidated Aircraft for single prototypes of patrol flying boats, to replace the Consolidated P2Y and Martin P3M that equipped the Navy's patrol squadrons.

Duguay-Trouin-class cruiser

After completion, single catapults were installed on the quarter-decks of each ship, initially with two Gourdou-Leseurre GL-812 HY flying-boats, later the GL-832.

Free French Naval Air Service

It operated all the French naval aircraft, seaplanes and flying boats, that escaped from German-occupied France after the Battle of France, together with naval aircraft from the French colonies that declared allegiance to de Gaulle's Free French Forces, and aircraft donated by the British and Americans.

Redland Bay, Queensland

These were mainly Sunderland flying boats traveling from Sydney to the United Kingdom.

Thomas W. Benoist

Benoist Aircraft and the St. Louis Car Company jointly proposed the construction of 5,000 Type XVs for the United Kingdom for use on antisubmarine patrols, but the British preferred Curtiss flying boats and nothing came of the idea.

Vaal Dam

On 4 May 1948 BOAC introduced Short Solent flying boats on the UK (Southampton) to South Africa (Vaaldam) service.

William Oke Manning

Although none of his aircraft were built in large numbers he is remembered for his English Electric Wren ultralight and his flying-boats.

Yampi Sound

During World War II, several raids were launched against the Japanese forces in Borneo and Java using Catalina Flying Boats by the RAAF from Cockatoo Island in Yampi Sound.

Zürichhorn

Oskar Bider was killed in an anccident before the ambitious project was realized, but from Zürichhorn respectively (as of today) the area of the Strandbad Tiefenbrunnen (lido) the Swiss airline Ad Astra Aero operated with seaplanes, among them seven Macchi-Nieuport and five Savoia flying boats and the first large flying boat, Dornier Wal.