A seaplane is a Avion having the capacity to be posed (to land on sea) or to take off on the Eau. This term is a term made up of the Greek hydros (Eau) and Néologisme Avion.

History

The first flight of a seaplane was carried out by Henri Fabre which took off the March 28th 1910 of the pond of Berre, with Martigues, in France, with its “Duck”.

Curtiss was the first manufacturer to be believed in the seaplane.

The largest seaplane ever built, H-4 Hercules , called Spruce Goose , flew only once during a minute approximately, in 1947, prototype due to the American millardaire eccentric Howard Hughes. They is front, then after the Second world war that the seaplane knew its hours of glory, in particular in the transport of transatlantic passengers, often under conditions of extreme luxury.

The advantages of the seaplanes are:

• to have the whole world as Aerodrome (70% of the surface of the Earth are covered with water, and it quasi totality of humanity lives with less than 200 km of the sea)
• Of being able to be posed almost anywhere in the event of breakdown.
• not to need a Undercarriage, favors particularly shouting for the large apparatuses whose landing gear represents more than 10% of the total weight with vacuum.

Actually, the variability of the state of the water levels, the difficulty in taking on board the passengers, bad qualities of flight of the seaplanes and progress in the reliability of the planes, as well as the generalization of the aerodromes of quality were right of the seaplanes, keeping a role to them only in geographical areas or activities very related to water. Today, the seaplanes of large tonnage for the transport of freight and/or passengers completely disappeared.

Structure

The seaplane is provided with floats which replace the wheels of a traditional plane. The fuselage of the large seaplanes is assimilated to the hull of a Bateau, which enables them to float. To facilitate the Lift-off hull and more quickly to eliminate the friction against water, the Careenage form a " redan" (see this word in Wiktionnaire) partly back.

Many seaplanes are also provided with wheels (what in fact of the planes Amphibies) and can thus roll since their hangar towards the water level and vice versa.

Famous seaplanes

See too

• Cut Schneider
• Ékranoplane
• Vehicle with ground effect
• Profile (aeronautical)
• Ground effect

External bonds

• HydroRetro: data sheets seaplanes/driving/etc - files aeronautical company/civil use or military etc - other
• Museum of the marine aviation of Biscarrosse
• Hydravore: All on the Seaplanes: History, data sheets, articles, files, vidéos, and forum.
• Museum of the air and space

• Biographies of the pioneers of aeronautics
• Hargrave
• Seaplanes on the west coast of Canada

Random links:

Malène | Tiligul-drew Tiraspol | Lewis Fitz-Gerald | Gentile da Fabriano | Pierre Billiards (journalist)