An amphibious aircraft , or amphibian , is an aircraft that can take off and land on both solid ground and water. These aircraft are typically fixed-wing , though amphibious helicopters do exist as well. Fixed-wing amphibious aircraft are seaplanes ( 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 with planes designed specifically for land-only or water-only operation.
41-680: The Supermarine Sea King was a British single-seat amphibious biplane fighter designed by Supermarine in 1919. Developed from the Supermarine Baby and the Supermarine Sea Lion I , the Sea King was a single seater biplane powered by a pusher 160 horsepower (120 kW) Beardmore engine. It first flew in early 1920 and was exhibited by Supermarine at the 1920 Olympia Show in London. The company released drawings of
82-611: A 300 horsepower (220 kW) Hispano-Suiza 8 engine. It first flew in December 1921 and demonstrated excellent manoeuvrability and stability, but was not selected for production. It was rebuilt by Mitchell and fitted with a Napier Lion engine; renamed as the Sea Lion II , it went on to win the Schneider Trophy race in 1922. On 29 October 1919, Supermarine commenced design of a single seat flying boat fighter. It
123-507: A conventional land-based aircraft). However, in cases where this is not practical, amphibious floatplanes, such as the amphibious version of the DHC Otter , incorporate retractable wheels within their floats. Some amphibians are fitted with reinforced keels which act as skis, allowing them to land on snow or ice with their wheels up. Many amphibian aircraft are of the flying boat type. These aircraft, and those designed as floatplanes with
164-441: 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 is not required in all cases, so an aircraft may be designed to carry its own. An occasional problem with amphibians
205-681: 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 and the Shin Meiwa US-2 , useful for long-range air–sea rescue tasks. In addition, amphibious aircraft are particularly useful as bush planes 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. In
246-406: A revised design of the Sea King. This was perhaps done to meet the requirements of Specification N6/22 , which required the design of a fighter aircraft capable of operating both from the deck of an aircraft carrier and from water. In December 1921, six months after the completion of the design, the aircraft was built and ready for tests. The resulting Sea King II was a single seat biplane, with
287-571: A runway. A common solution is to make them retractable, like those found on the Consolidated Catalina ; 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 , mounted with their own lower surfaces nearly even with the ventral "boat-hull"-shaped fuselage surface. This can provide
328-486: A single main float under the fuselage centerline (such as the Loening OL and Grumman J2F ), 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
369-535: A variety of roles. However, like the pure flying boat, they were 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
410-413: A wooden hull , a retractable main landing gear and a fixed tail skid. The tail—now greatly modified—was of monoplane type mounted halfway up the single fin with a single rudder; both fin and rudder were larger than those of the Sea King I. The aircraft was powered by a single 300 horsepower (220 kW) Hispano-Suiza 8 engine. The Sea King II's starting handle and the petrol cap were accessed from behind
451-486: Is with ensuring that 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 that 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
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#1732787248664492-814: The Cessna Caravan . 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 . Siddeley Puma The Siddeley Puma is a British aero engine developed towards the end of World War I and produced by Siddeley-Deasy . The first Puma engines left the production lines of Siddeley-Deasy in Coventry in August 1917, production continued until December 1918. In operational service,
533-406: The Consolidated Catalina (named for Santa Catalina Island off the coast of southern California, whose resort was popularized partly by the use of amphibians in the 1930s, including Sikorskys and Douglas Dolphins ) 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 and its variants for
574-535: The D.H.9A . The unit was also used in the prototypes of the Airco DH.10 Amiens in a twin-engined pusher configuration but as performance was unsatisfactory, alternative engines were used in a subsequent prototype of the type and production models. A Siddeley build 200 hp BHP engine has been restored to airworthy condition by Retrotec , an aircraft restoration company based in Sussex , United Kingdom . The engine
615-547: The Royal Navy 's aircraft carriers. The Sea King II was rebuilt by Mitchell as a racing flying boat and fitted with a Napier Lion engine to become the Supermarine Sea Lion II , which won the 1922 Schneider Trophy contest. The Sea Lion II was powered with a 450 hp (340 kW) Napier Lion engine, loaned by Napier . The new engine resulted in an increase in power of 50 per cent. The aircraft won
656-565: The United Kingdom , traditionally a maritime nation, a large number of amphibians were built between the wars, starting from 1918 with the Vickers Viking and the early 1920s Supermarine Seagull , and were used for exploration and military duties, including search and rescue, artillery spotting and anti-submarine patrol. These evolved throughout the interwar period to culminate in the post–World War II Supermarine Seagull , which
697-406: The 1920 Olympia Show in London, where it was the sole example of a single-seat seaplane fighter at the show. Supermarine released drawings of the Sea King's design prior to the show; the aircraft exhibited was probably a modified N60 Baby. There is evidence that modifications to the wing structure had been undertaken before the aircraft appeared at Olympia, and that its performance improved when it
738-538: The 230 hp BHP to better reflect its actual output. BHP formed Galloway Engineering to produce the engine which, when produced by Galloway, became known as the Galloway Adriatic . The 230 hp BHP engine was also licensed to Siddeley-Deasy , to be built at their Parkside works. In addition to building the Adriatic engines, Galloway also supplied components to Siddeley-Deasy. John Siddeley himself worked on
779-426: The aircraft upside down, causing substantial damage. 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 for some jobs and can do so at a significantly lower cost. Amphibious aircraft can also be much faster and have
820-521: The aircraft's design prior to the show; what it exhibited was probably a modified Supermarine Baby. The Sea King was redesigned by Supermarine's new chief designer Reginald Mitchell in 1921, perhaps in order to meet the Air Ministry 's specifications for a fighter aircraft capable of operating both from an aircraft carrier and from the water. Designated as the Sea King II, it was powered by
861-547: The demand is too small to justify the costs of development, with the Volmer Sportsman being a popular choice among 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 , ICON A5 , and the amphibious-float–equipped version of
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#1732787248664902-554: The engine and, after making many changes, the various iterations of the engine built by Siddeley-Deasy all became known as the Siddeley Puma. The Puma was later developed into the ADC Nimbus . In wartime British military service, versions of the engine built by Siddeley-Deasy and Galloway were both known as the 230 hp BHP although they had different dimensions and few interchangeable parts. The Siddeley-Deasy version of
943-729: The engine was by far the more numerous of the two designs and the only one in service in continental Europe at the end of WW1. The BHP engine was one of a number of engines with cast aluminium engine blocks that William Weir, 1st Viscount Weir , newly appointed as Controller of Aeronautical Supplies and a member of the Air Board, hoped would be easier to mass produce than the Rolls-Royce Eagle and Falcon , engines that only highly skilled workers could build. Cylinders are constructed in blocks of three. Steel sleeves, open at both ends, are screwed into an aluminium casting which forms
984-476: The engine was unreliable and failed to deliver its rated power. At least 4,288 of the 11,500 ordered engines were delivered, orders were cancelled following the Armistice . Production was continued under the name Armstrong Siddeley Puma when the manufacturer was bought by Armstrong Whitworth and became Armstrong Siddeley . The Puma was based on an engine designed by Beardmore Halford Pullinger (BHP) which
1025-519: The first Italian aircraft to fly. While most were not amphibians, quite a few were, including the Savoia-Marchetti S.56 A and the Piaggio P.136 . Amphibious aircraft have been particularly useful in the unforgiving terrain of Alaska and northern Canada , where many remain in civilian service, providing remote communities with vital links to the outside world. The Canadian Vickers Vedette
1066-417: The fog. The resulting aircraft, known as the Sea King, was a single seater biplane powered by a pusher 160 horsepower (120 kW) Beardmore engine. Few details about the design in its original form are known. The aircraft's machine gun mounting was positioned low enough for the pilot to have an unobstructed view ahead of him. In 1921, Reginald Mitchell , by now chief designer of Supermarine, produced
1107-402: The heads for three cylinders and the inlet manifold. A separate aluminium water jacket surrounds the cylinder barrels and is bolted to the head casting and made tight at the bottom by annular nuts screwed against rubber glands. The bronze valve seats were expanded into place. Each cylinder contains one large inlet valve and two smaller exhaust valves. This unusual three valve per cylinder design
1148-642: The larger flying boats could not go, and helping to popularize amphibians in the US. The Grumman Corporation, latecomers to the game, introduced a pair of light utility amphibious aircraft – the Goose and the Widgeon – 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 and their allies during World War II. Not coincidentally,
1189-482: The more remote locations during the summer months when the only areas suitable for landing are the waterways. Despite the gains of amphibious floats, small flying-boat amphibians continued to be developed into the 1960s, with the Republic Seabee and Lake LA-4 series proving popular, though neither was a commercial success due to factors beyond their makers' control. Many today are homebuilts, by necessity as
1230-535: The needed stability, while floatplane amphibians usually avoid the problem by dividing their buoyancy requirements between two floats, much like a catamaran . Some non-amphibious seaplanes may be mistaken for amphibians (such as the Shin Meiwa PS-1 ) 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
1271-408: The pilot's seat. The undercarriage struts were designed to ensure shocks to the hull were reduced when the machine landed. A unique feature of the Sea King II was a tube that ran through the hull to supply air to the rear step. The Sea King II was the first aircraft designed by Mitchell after having become Chief Designer at Supermarine in 1919. He designed it with ease of maintenance in mind—the engine
Supermarine Sea King - Misplaced Pages Continue
1312-573: The race at an average speed of 145.7 mph (234.5 km/h). The victory was the first post-World War I success by a British aircraft in an international competition, and generated a large amount of publicity for Supermarine. Data from Supermarine Aircraft since 1914 General characteristics Performance Data from Supermarine Aircraft since 1914 General characteristics Performance Armament Amphibious aircraft Floatplanes often have floats that are interchangeable with wheeled landing gear (thereby producing
1353-644: The type's poor service reliability. The Puma engine was primarily used in the British World War I bomber aircraft, the Airco D.H.9 . In use it proved to be highly troublesome, making the aircraft significantly inferior to the type it replaced. The engine was also installed untidily, with the cylinder heads protruding. The D.H.9, as a type, was improved by replacing the Puma engine with the Liberty 12 to make
1394-623: The weight penalty the undercarriage imposed. Russia also developed a number of important flying boats, including the widely used pre-war Shavrov Sh-2 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 and Adriatic , has had a long history of waterborne aircraft, going back to
1435-533: Was common to both the Adriatic and Puma engines. The crankshaft is carried in seven plain bearings. Pistons are made from aluminium and fitted with four rings, the lower top ring and the one below the wrist pin being used as oil scrapers. Dual ignition is supplied by two magnetos mounted crosswise and driven from the camshaft. The connecting rods have "H" sections and four-bolt caps. Rods were stamped with part numbers and inspection marks that created weak points leading to crack propagation which likely contributed to
1476-564: Was developed for forestry patrol in remote areas; a job that previously was done by canoe and took weeks could be accomplished in hours, revolutionizing forestry conservation. Although successful, flying-boat amphibians like the Vedette 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
1517-523: Was developed from the Supermarine Baby and an aircraft developed from it, the Supermarine Sea Lion I . The prototype of the Baby had first flown upon its completion in February 1918, but never saw action during World War I. and was no longer used after the end of the war. The Sea Lion I had participated in the 1919 Schneider Trophy race, the results of which were annulled when the race ended in chaos due to
1558-824: Was flown using a Siddeley Puma engine. The Sea King II was registered as E-BAH in December 1921—when it was named as the Supermarine Amphibian Scout—and first flew that month. During trials it demonstrated excellent manoeuvrability and stability, without 'porpoising' or bouncing when coming into contact with water. It was not selected for production, and the Fairey Flycatcher and the Parnall Plover , both biplanes that could be converted between having conventional tailwheel undercarriage and floats, were ordered in small numbers for further evaluation. The Flycatcher succeeded in being selected to equip
1599-409: Was mounted independently of the wings, and only 18 bolts needed to be removed to take off the wing structure, the power unit and the undercarriage. The Sea King I is thought to have first flown in early 1920 following its construction, although it may not ever have flown, as it was never registered. the exact date and the name of the test pilot are unknown. The aircraft was exhibited by Supermarine at
1640-626: Was selected for production on the recommendation of the Internal Combustion Engine Sub-Committee of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in March 1917, despite the engine being still under test. Although BHP's design was projected to produce 300 hp (224 kW) the engine's output came in below expectations. The original name given to the engine was the 200 hp BHP. The engine's name was later changed to
1681-568: Was to have replaced the wartime Walrus and the Sea Otter but was overtaken by advances in helicopters . From the mid-1920s to the late 1930s in the United States , 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