What was the point of flying boats they were slow lumbering weekly armed aircraft , If you need patrol aircraft use a medium bomber or if your greman use the condor. same answer applies to search and rescue . I dont understand the worlds affinty with flying boats someone please help
Why did every country have a flying boat ?
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GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Flying boats were able to land and take off anywhere there was water, if they ran into engine trouble, they could land and wait for assistance.
The BV222 could land alongside a U-boat and resupply and/or take POWs aboard.
The Japanese used flying boats for long range patrols operating from atolls and others remote islands without having to build and maintain large airstrips.
Flying boats also had longer ranges than land based aircraft, because the majority of the hull was used for fuel storage.
The BV222 could land alongside a U-boat and resupply and/or take POWs aboard.
The Japanese used flying boats for long range patrols operating from atolls and others remote islands without having to build and maintain large airstrips.
Flying boats also had longer ranges than land based aircraft, because the majority of the hull was used for fuel storage.
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But its a flying boat its redunant a medium bomber or condor could do everything you ask a flying boat to do ,
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
A medium bomber can't land on water and rescue a downed aircrew and then sink an enemy submarine on the way home!
Thumpalumpacus
Captain
Not so fast. Flying boats could perform surface sea-rescue, and also perform very long-range recon. They were also, due to their low cruising speeds, excellent for shadowing enemy forces over long durations. Ask the Brits -- it was a PBY that respotted the Bismarck after it had sunk the Hood and then broke contact with Norfolk and Suffolk. That was on mission that lasted over eighteen hours. Let's see any medium bomber of the era do that.
Fun fact: the only successful USN torpedo strike at Midway was launched by a PBY.
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Yeah second that. I don't know what it is but I've always loved flying boats
Just Schmidt
Senior Airman
Quite apart from, as others have said, a medium bomber or a condor needing constructed airfields, there's also the other role as transport aircraft to consider. As an example, the German invasion of Norway relied heavily on flying boats for supplying and reinforsing the isolated troops around Narvik. During the war (but not exclusively so) there was an important seaplane harbour at Skattøra in Tromsø. The prepared runways in the vast area of strategically important Northern Norway were few and far between.
Thumpalumpacus
Captain
And the Sunderland! What a great airplane.
The use of seaplanes and flying boats goes back to the earliest days of aviation. WW1 for example.
www.rafmuseum.org.uk
By 1918 the RAF was experimenting with flying boats landing on the water and dipping a hydrophone beneath its hull to detect submarines. The only land based flying machines of the time able to pull a similar trick were airships (which didn't need to land to do it). This was 20+ years before sonobuoys were invented and 30+ years before helicopters and dipping sonars. The Japanese did the same thing in the 1970s with the US-1A.
In civilian life they provided the ideal means of connecting the various parts of the British Empire. Between the wars, from Britain routes reached out to South Africa, India, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand and across the North Atlantic to the USA. Again bodies of water could be found to land on virtually everywhere they needed to go.
A medium bomber certainly didn't have the range of flying boats in WW2. The first 4 engined landplanes with the range to compete with flying boats were the early Liberator models with the RAF in 1941.
In WW2 it was PBY Catalina flying boats of Qantas that re-established the air route between Australia and Ceylon in July 1943 with flights lasting over 27 hours (the so called Double Sunrise route). It was mid 1944 before a Liberator achieved the same feat, but in a shorter time.
But aircraft development in WW2 largely sealed the fate of the flying boat although the last large flying boats lingered on in service in the Pacific until about 1960.
www.motat.nz
Another time. Another world.
But don't forget the nuclear capable Martin P6M Seamaster from the 1950s and USN plans for a Seaplane Striking Force.
en.m.wikipedia.org
Building Britain's WW1 flying boat fleet - RAF Museum
How Britain developed and built a force of long range flying boats during the First World War.
www.rafmuseum.org.uk
By 1918 the RAF was experimenting with flying boats landing on the water and dipping a hydrophone beneath its hull to detect submarines. The only land based flying machines of the time able to pull a similar trick were airships (which didn't need to land to do it). This was 20+ years before sonobuoys were invented and 30+ years before helicopters and dipping sonars. The Japanese did the same thing in the 1970s with the US-1A.
In civilian life they provided the ideal means of connecting the various parts of the British Empire. Between the wars, from Britain routes reached out to South Africa, India, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand and across the North Atlantic to the USA. Again bodies of water could be found to land on virtually everywhere they needed to go.
A medium bomber certainly didn't have the range of flying boats in WW2. The first 4 engined landplanes with the range to compete with flying boats were the early Liberator models with the RAF in 1941.
In WW2 it was PBY Catalina flying boats of Qantas that re-established the air route between Australia and Ceylon in July 1943 with flights lasting over 27 hours (the so called Double Sunrise route). It was mid 1944 before a Liberator achieved the same feat, but in a shorter time.
But aircraft development in WW2 largely sealed the fate of the flying boat although the last large flying boats lingered on in service in the Pacific until about 1960.
Last of the Great Flying Boats: The Short Solent | MOTAT | New Zealand
The Solent flying boat enjoys a special place in New Zealand’s aviation history; and when it is only one of two left in the world it becomes unique . In fact, MOTAT’s ZK-AMO is the only Short Solent Mark IV variant left in existence. The Solent was operated by Tasman Empire Airways Ltd (TEAL) at...
www.motat.nz
Another time. Another world.
But don't forget the nuclear capable Martin P6M Seamaster from the 1950s and USN plans for a Seaplane Striking Force.
Martin P6M SeaMaster - Wikipedia
buffnut453
Captain
Not if you don't have airfields from which to operate them. Part of the affection for flying boats came from the 1930s when there weren't airfields everywhere in the world. The Allies found ways to make runways quickly using marston matting but that was a relatively late development in the war. Prior to that, any requirement for rapid deployment of offensive or maritime patrol aircraft would require flying boats...at least that was the theory.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
The only airplane the U.S. fielded at the Battle of Midway that made a successful torpedo attack.
Uh, you might want to rethink is. You going to land that medium bomber in the North Atlantic?
You answered your initial question yourself in your first post to when you used the words "Search and Rescue" in it. A medium bomber can drop a raft. A flying boat can actually "rescue".
Having said they are optimal for coastal operation, anti-sabmarine, long range patrol, and in remote areas where you can't build a runway.
The British Air Ministry began work in 1938 to develop temporary runway making materials, recognising that grass airfields wouldn't last long under heavy usage. From that came Chevron Grid and then in 1941 Sommerfield Track. The latter came as large rolls of metal grid (a bit like an enlarged version of chicken wire) and was used from late 1941 in the Middle East. The other prefabricated runway material used extensively by British airfield engineers was PBS (Prefabricated Bituminized Strips) made from jute, which dated from around the same time. It was widely used in the CBI due to the ready availability of the raw materials needed for its manufacture.
Marston Mat or Pierced Steel Planking was developed in the USA around 1939/40 and first used in 1941. Bluie West 1 in Greenland is supposed to be its first operational use, being built in the latter part of 1941.
Marston Mat | Air & Space Forces Magazine
With pierced steel planking, you could have a runway where you needed one. Even the holes in it were f
www.airforcemag.com
buffnut453
Captain
The British Air Ministry began work in 1938 to develop temporary runway making materials, recognising that grass airfields wouldn't last long under heavy usage. From that came Chevron Grid and then in 1941 Sommerfield Track. The latter came as large rolls of metal grid (a bit like an enlarged version of chicken wire) and was used from late 1941 in the Middle East. The other prefabricated runway material used extensively by British airfield engineers was PBS (Prefabricated Bituminized Strips) made from jute, which dated from around the same time. It was widely used in the CBI due to the ready availability of the raw materials needed for its manufacture.
Marston Mat or Pierced Steel Planking was developed in the USA around 1939/40 and first used in 1941. Bluie West 1 in Greenland is supposed to be its first operational use, being built in the latter part of 1941.
Marston Mat | Air & Space Forces Magazine
With pierced steel planking, you could have a runway where you needed one. Even the holes in it were f
Fair enough...perhaps "developed relatively late" was overly simplistic. It was developed early but only used from the middle part of the war onwards (which is late in my book
).It was 1943 before a proper airborne lifeboat able to be dropped from a land plane entered service to better the life raft.
Airborne lifeboat - Wikipedia
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