If it were a land plane, I could see maybe doing that... But the fact that it's a floatplane IMO makes it almost impossible that will ever happen.
Why? Well aside from the fact they don't have the floats, it's an entirely different danger-level to take off in a sea plane, let alone a restored/rebuilt/fabricated design that hasn't ever been tested. A choppy surface and you could lose all that work/money.
It was dangerous even back then to take off in one of those things. Heck, the prototype Ar196 had a hard wave and the engine mounts snapped off and the rest of the airframe caught fire from the leaking gas. It was lost (crew got out, though).
From a liability, cost-v-reward aspect, and several other aspects, I don't see it happening. Just my personal opinion, though.
Krusty has a point about it being afloat ever again, however if wheels could ever be soundly engineered and then fastened to the bottom of some replica floats... different ball game. That's still a real long-shot imho though, chances are good some museum or collector will buy this last example and want it restored to historic acuracy and put on display... it is the last.
He didn't go into more detail than to say that the pilot came in "a bit crooked" and tore the floats off.
Thank you, still that does shed a bit more light into it being pilot error and the lack of one engine beign attached.
Maybe the pilot had been out drinking too late the night before with some Stuka drivers.
I hope he lived to talk about it or write a book so that some of our P38 drivers in AH can hear about how the pros used to do it.
