Amphibious Aircraft
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An amphibious aircraft or amphibian is an
aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...
(typically
fixed-wing A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air flying machine, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using wings that generate lift caused by the aircraft's forward airspeed and the shape of the wings. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct ...
) that can take off and
land Land, also known as dry land, ground, or earth, is the solid terrestrial surface of the planet Earth that is not submerged by the ocean or other bodies of water. It makes up 29% of Earth's surface and includes the continents and various isla ...
on both solid ground and water, though
amphibious helicopters Amphibious means able to use either land or water. In particular it may refer to: Animals * Amphibian, a vertebrate animal of the class Amphibia (many of which live on land and breed in water) * Amphibious caterpillar * Amphibious fish, a fish ...
do exist as well. Fixed-wing amphibious aircraft are
seaplanes A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tec ...
( flying boats and floatplanes) which are equipped with retractable wheels, at the expense of extra weight and complexity, plus diminished range and fuel economy compared to planes designed specifically for land-only or water-only operation. Some amphibians are fitted with reinforced
keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...
s which act as skis, allowing them to land on snow or ice with their wheels up.


Design

Floatplanes often have floats that are interchangeable with wheeled
landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...
(thereby producing a conventional land-based aircraft). However, in cases where this is not practical, amphibious floatplanes, such as the amphibious version of the
DHC Otter The de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter is a single-engined, high-wing, propeller-driven, short take-off and landing (STOL) aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada. It was conceived to be capable of performing the same roles as the earlier and h ...
, incorporate retractable wheels within their floats. Many amphibian aircraft are of the flying boat type. These aircraft, and those designed as floatplanes with a single main float under the fuselage centerline (such as the
Loening OL The Loening OL, also known as the Loening Amphibian, was an American two-seat amphibious biplane designed by Grover Loening and built by Loening for the United States Army Air Corps and the United States Navy. Design and development First flown ...
and
Grumman J2F The Grumman J2F Duck (company designation G-15) is an American single-engine amphibious biplane. It was used by each major branch of the U.S. armed forces from the mid-1930s until just after World War II, primarily for utility and air-sea rescue ...
), require outrigger floats to provide lateral stability so as to avoid dipping a wingtip, which can destroy an aircraft if it happens at speed, or can cause the wingtip to fill with water and sink if stationary. While these impose weight and drag, amphibious aircraft also face the possibility of these getting hit when operating from a runway. A common solution is to make them retractable, like those found on the
Consolidated Catalina The Consolidated PBY Catalina is a flying boat and amphibious aircraft that was produced in the 1930s and 1940s. In Canadian service it was known as the Canso. It was one of the most widely used seaplanes of World War II. Catalinas served wit ...
; however, these are even heavier than fixed floats. Some aircraft may have the tip floats removed for extended use from land. Other amphibians, such as the Dornier Seastar, use stub wings, called
sponsons Sponsons are projections extending from the sides of land vehicles, aircraft or watercraft to provide protection, stability, storage locations, mounting points for weapons or other devices, or equipment housing. Watercraft On watercraft, a spon ...
, mounted with their own lower surfaces nearly even with the ventral "boat-hull" shaped fuselage surface. This can provide the needed stability, while floatplane amphibians usually avoid the problem by dividing their buoyancy requirements between two floats, much like a
catamaran A Formula 16 beachable catamaran Powered catamaran passenger ferry at Salem, Massachusetts, United States A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a multi-hulled watercraft featuring two parallel hulls of equal size. It is a geometry-stab ...
. Some non-amphibious seaplanes may be mistaken for amphibians (such as the
Shin Meiwa PS-1 The Shin Meiwa PS-1 and US-1A is a large STOL aircraft designed for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and air-sea rescue (SAR) work respectively by Japanese aircraft manufacturer Shin Meiwa. The PS-1 anti-submarine warfare (ASW) variant is a flying ...
) which carry their own beaching gear. Usually, this is a wheeled dolly or temporary set of wheels used to move a flying boat or floatplane from the water and allow it to be moved around on land. It can also appear as a conventional undercarriage. These are not built to take the impact of the aircraft landing on them. An amphibian can leave the water without anyone getting in the water to attach beaching wheels (or even having to have any handy), yet a fully functional undercarriage is heavy and impacts the aircraft's performance, and isn't required in all cases, so an aircraft may be designed to carry its own.


Hazards

An occasional problem with amphibians is with ensuring the wheels are in the correct position for landing. In normal operation, the pilot uses a checklist, verifying each item. Since amphibians can land with them up or down though, the pilot must take extra care to ensure they are correct for the chosen landing place. Landing wheels up on land may damage the keel (unless done on wet grass, a technique occasionally used by pilots of pure flying boats), while landing wheels down on water will almost always flip the aircraft upside down, causing substantial damage.


Usage

Amphibious aircraft are heavier and slower, more complex and more expensive to purchase and operate than comparable landplanes. However, they are also more versatile. Even though they cannot hover or land vertically, they compete favorably with
helicopters A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
for some jobs and can do so at a significantly lower cost. Amphibious aircraft can also be much faster and have a longer range than comparable helicopters, and can achieve nearly the range of land based aircraft, because an airplane's wing is more efficient than a helicopter's lifting rotor. This makes amphibious aircraft, such as the
Grumman Albatross The Grumman HU-16 Albatross is a large, twin–radial engined amphibious seaplane that was used by the United States Air Force (USAF), the U.S. Navy (USN), and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), primarily as a search and rescue (SAR) aircraft. Origina ...
and the
Shin Meiwa US-2 The ShinMaywa US-2 is a large Japanese short takeoff and landing amphibious aircraft developed and manufactured by seaplane specialist ShinMaywa (formerly ''Shin Meiwa''). It was developed from the earlier Shin Meiwa US-1A seaplane, which was ...
, useful for long-range air-sea rescue tasks. In addition, amphibious aircraft are particularly useful as
bush planes A bush airplane is a general aviation aircraft used to provide both scheduled and unscheduled passenger and flight services to remote, undeveloped areas, such as the Canadian north or bush, Alaskan tundra, the African bush, or savanna, Amazon ra ...
that can engage in light transport in remote areas. In these areas, they often have to operate not only from airstrips, but from lakes and rivers as well.


History

In the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, traditionally a maritime nation, a large number of amphibians were built between the wars, starting from 1918 with the
Vickers Viking The Vickers Viking was a British single-engine amphibious aircraft designed for military use shortly after World War I. Later versions of the aircraft were known as the Vickers Vulture and Vickers Vanellus. Design and development Resear ...
and the early 1920s Supermarine Seagull and were used for exploration and military duties including search and rescue, artillery spotting and anti-submarine patrol. The most notable being the
Short Sunderland The Short S.25 Sunderland is a British flying boat patrol bomber, developed and constructed by Short Brothers for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The aircraft took its service name from the town (latterly, city) and port of Sunderland in North Ea ...
which carried out many anti-submarine patrols over the North Atlantic on sorties of 8 – 12 hours duration. These evolved throughout the interwar period to ultimately culminate in the post World War 2 Supermarine Seagull, which was to have replaced the wartime
Walrus The walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus'') is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the fami ...
and the Sea Otter but was overtaken by advances in
helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
s. Starting in the mid-1920s and running into the late 1930s in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, Sikorsky produced an extensive family of amphibians (the S-34, S-36, S-38, S-39, S-41, S-43) that were widely used for exploration and as airliners around the globe, helping pioneer many overseas air routes where the larger flying boats could not go, and helping to popularize amphibians in the US. The
Grumman The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a 20th century American producer of military and civilian aircraft. Founded on December 6, 1929, by Leroy Grumman and his business partners, it merged in 1994 ...
Corporation, late-comers to the game, introduced a pair of light utility amphibious aircraft - the
Goose A goose ( : geese) is a bird of any of several waterfowl species in the family Anatidae. This group comprises the genera ''Anser'' (the grey geese and white geese) and '' Branta'' (the black geese). Some other birds, mostly related to the ...
and the
Widgeon The wigeons or widgeons are a group of birds, dabbling ducks currently classified in the genus ''Mareca'' along with two other species. There are three extant species of wigeon, in addition to one recently extinct species. Biology There are t ...
during the late 1930s for the civilian market. However, their military potential could not be ignored, and many were ordered by the
US Armed forces The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...
and their allies during World War II. Not coincidentally, the
Consolidated Catalina The Consolidated PBY Catalina is a flying boat and amphibious aircraft that was produced in the 1930s and 1940s. In Canadian service it was known as the Canso. It was one of the most widely used seaplanes of World War II. Catalinas served wit ...
(named for Santa Catalina Island off the coast of southern California whose resort was partially popularized by the use of amphibians in the 1930s, including Sikorskys, and
Douglas Dolphin The Douglas Dolphin is an American amphibious flying boat. While only 58 were built, they served a wide variety of roles including private air yacht, airliner, military transport, and search and rescue. Design and development The Dolphin origin ...
s) was redeveloped from being a pure flying boat into an amphibian during the war. After the war, the United States military ordered hundreds of the
Grumman Albatross The Grumman HU-16 Albatross is a large, twin–radial engined amphibious seaplane that was used by the United States Air Force (USAF), the U.S. Navy (USN), and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), primarily as a search and rescue (SAR) aircraft. Origina ...
and its variants for a variety of roles, though, like the pure flying boat was made obsolete by helicopters which could operate in sea conditions far beyond what the best seaplane could manage. Development of amphibians was not limited to the United Kingdom and the United States. In any case, few designs saw more than limited service, as there was a widespread preference for pure flying boats and floatplanes, due to the weight penalty the undercarriage imposed. Russia also developed a number of important flying boats, including the widely used pre-war
Shavrov Sh-2 The Shavrov Sh-2 (later ASh-2)Andersson, 1995, p.222 was a 1930s Soviet amphibious sesquiplane flying boat developed from the Sh-1, with a more powerful engine, slightly increased size and amphibious undercarriage. The Sh-2 could carry three ...
utility flying boat, and postwar the Beriev Be-12 anti-submarine and maritime patrol amphibian. Development of amphibians continues in Russia with the jet engined Beriev Be-200. Italy, bordering the
Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...
and Adriatic has had a long history of waterborne aircraft going back to the first Italian aircraft to fly. While most were not amphibians, quite a few were, including the Savoia-Marchetti S.56A and the Piaggio P.136. Amphibious aircraft were particularly useful in the unforgiving terrain of
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
and northern
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, where many remain in civilian service, providing remote communities with vital links to the outside world. The
Canadian Vickers Vedette The Canadian Vickers Vedette was the first aircraft designed and built in Canada to meet a specification for Canadian conditions. It was a single-engine biplane flying boat purchased to meet a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) demand for a smaller ...
was developed for forestry patrol in remote areas, previously a job that was done by canoe and took weeks could be accomplished in hours, revolutionizing forestry conservation. Although successful, flying boat amphibians like it ultimately proved less versatile than floatplane amphibians and are no longer as common as they once were. Amphibious floats that could be attached to any aircraft were developed, turning any aircraft into an amphibian, and these continue to be essential for getting into the more remote locations during the summer months when the only open areas are the waterways. Despite the gains of amphibious floats, small flying boat amphibians continued to be developed into the 1960s, with the
Republic Seabee The Republic RC-3 Seabee is an all-metal amphibious sports aircraft designed by Percival Spencer and manufactured by the Republic Aircraft Corporation. Design and development The RC-3 Seabee was designed by Percival Hopkins "Spence" Spencer ...
and
Lake LA-4 The Lake Buccaneer is an American four-seat, light amphibious aircraft derived from the Colonial C-2 Skimmer, itself a development of the three-seat Colonial C-1 Skimmer. Development The Colonial Aircraft of Sanford, Maine developed the C-2 ...
series proving popular, though neither was a commercial success due to factors beyond their makers control. Many today are homebuilts, by necessity as the demand is too small to justify the costs of development, with the
Volmer Sportsman The Volmer VJ-22 Sportsman is an American homebuilt amphibious aircraft. The Sportsman is a two-seat high-winged monoplane of wood and fabric construction, with over 100 built by 1993. Development and design Volmer Jensen, a successful design ...
being a popular choice amongst the many offerings. With the increased availability of airstrips in remote communities, fewer amphibious aircraft are manufactured today than in the past, although a handful of amphibious aircraft are still produced, such as the
Bombardier 415 The Canadair CL-415 (Super Scooper, later Bombardier 415) and the De Havilland Canada DHC-515 are a series of amphibious aircraft built originally by Canadair and subsequently by Bombardier and Viking Air, and De Havilland Canada. The CL-415 ...
, ICON A5, and the amphibious-float equipped version of the
Cessna Caravan The Cessna 208 Caravan is a utility aircraft produced by Cessna. The project was commenced on November 20, 1981, and the prototype first flew on December 9, 1982. The production model was certified by the FAA in October 1984 and its Cargoma ...
. Development of amphibians has continued into the new millennium. The ShinMaywa US-2 was developed in the 2000s in Japan for the
Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force , abbreviated , also simply known as the Japanese Navy, is the maritime warfare branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, tasked with the naval defense of Japan. The JMSDF was formed following the dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) ...
.


See also

*
Amphibious helicopter An amphibious helicopter is a helicopter that is intended to land on and take off from both land and water. Amphibious helicopters are used for a variety of specialized purposes including air-sea rescue, marine salvage and oceanography, in additio ...
*
Amphibious vehicle An amphibious vehicle (or simply amphibian), is a vehicle that is a means of transport viable on land as well as on or under water. Amphibious vehicles include amphibious bicycles, ATVs, cars, buses, trucks, railway vehicles, combat vehicles an ...
*
List of flying boats and floatplanes The following is a list of seaplanes, which includes floatplanes and flying boats. A seaplane is any airplane that has the capability of landing and taking off from water, while an amphibian is a seaplane which can also operate from land. (They d ...
* Floatplane * Flying boat *
Seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tec ...
*
Tigerfish Aviation Tigerfish Aviation is an aerospace research and development company based in Norwood, South Australia. The company has been developing a retractable pontoon system for the float plane industry, which has been patented as Retractable Amphibious Pont ...
(retractable float) *
Unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...


References

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