Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: earl1937 on August 20, 2013, 03:03:16 PM
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:airplane: While there was not much use for aircraft which could land on the water and land during the WW1 conflict, when WW2 started, it was real apparent that the U.S. military was going to need aircraft to rescue downed flyer's in the vast oceans of the world.
In 1942, the only acceptable aircraft were the Grumman "Goose" and the consolidated PBY series of aircraft. It is interesting to note that the "Goose" was used extensionally for not only high ranking transport personell, but was used by the U.S. Coast Guard up and down the Eastern Sea board area, as both a "Recon", looking for German Subs, but as a trainer also.
(http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p684/earl1937/300px-JRF-5_NAS_Jax_1942_zps32017556.jpg) This is a pic of an early "Goose" at Jacksonville Naval air station in 1942.
there were later models of the Grumman series of water aircraft, one of which is the Mallard, which the last one retired was in 1995!
(http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p684/earl1937/300px-Hu16-N3HU-071022-13-12_zpsd6a3ad18.jpg) This aircraft was used in Korean conflict and the Vietnam war, and was later re-designated the HU-16 Albatross.
Other pic's are:
(http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p684/earl1937/300px-PBY_Catalina_landing_zps04a545b2.jpg) The stories which involved the PBY aircraft are many and some made historic footnotes in history, one of the most famous was the part the PBY's played in finding the Japanese fleet during the battle of Midway. 7 PBY's were sent out looking for the fleet and each one had a call sign of "Strawberry", 1 thru 7 and "Strawberry 5" was the PBY which located the Japanese fleet. The crew of Strawberry 5 made a "boo-boo" by just saying, "many ships"!
But CNC new where each aircraft was assigned to go, so they had a good idea where they were, just not how far away. This was made famous in the Movie, "Midway", starring Charlton Heston and a host of other Hollywood stars.
I would guess the most interesting sea plane, which was not a air/sea rescue was the Martin P6M bomber. The U.S. Navy was trying to get a nuclear strike force aside from the U.S. Air force and they had Martin put this aircraft into production, but the ICBM submarines came along and that cancelled the P6M program.
(http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p684/earl1937/p6mmartinbomber_zps43a9b08e.jpg) This aircraft had no land capability and was serviced with surface ships and some submarines were equipped to service this aircraft.
(http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p684/earl1937/p6mfrontview_zps34548d57.jpg)
It would certainly be great to have the PBY aircraft in our Aces High game, but don't know how much trouble, computer wise, to install it in the game with the ability of landing both on water and land.
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I'd assume land operations would be easy, just give it landing gear. The trickier part would be landing on water, though presumably they could do with however the LVTs or PT boats are modeled.
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I'd assume land operations would be easy, just give it landing gear. The trickier part would be landing on water, though presumably they could do with however the LVTs or PT boats are modeled.
:x That is an excellent point! Maybe the powers that be hadn't thought of it that way! Maybe your comment will encourage new thinking on the PBY!
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Dornier Do 24
(http://luftarchiv.de/flugzeuge/dornier/do24n.jpg)
This aircraft is the root cause of the chute-shooting war between the Axis and Allies in Europe. The Luftwaffe had specialized squadrons of these SAR aircraft for locating and rescuing pilots at sea during the Battle of Britain. The RAF only had rescue launches, and grew weary of having their airmen die in the Channel while the Germans got rescued; despite being painted bright white with red crosses, the RAF started shooting down the German SAR planes. In retaliation the Luftwaffe started strafing British pilots in the sea or in their inflatable dinghies, and it only escalated from there.
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A friend of mine flew in the 31st FG out of Italy. He was shot down on Dec. 26, 1944 and bailed out landing in the Adriatic Sea. A PBY of the 1st Emergency Rescue Squadron commanded by Lt. Millard picked Bill up at 43.31N 14.58E.
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The Beriev Be-200 is the best amphibious aircraft today. With the many fire-fighting crisis' in North America, and the lack of suitable domestic fire-fighting aircraft, I can only imagine the level of political lobbying that must be levied on the U.S. authorities to keep denying this aircraft certification in the U.S.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E858ja856Cw
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Flying boats are sexy : one of the best looking aircraft ever built
(http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/lookandlearn-preview/B/B001/B001694.jpg)
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The Beriev Be-200 is the best amphibious aircraft today. With the many fire-fighting crisis' in North America, and the lack of suitable domestic fire-fighting aircraft, I can only imagine the level of political lobbying that must be levied on the U.S. authorities to keep denying this aircraft certification in the U.S.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E858ja856Cw
Do any European countries fly that a/c considering the number of fires there?
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I'd assume land operations would be easy, just give it landing gear. The trickier part would be landing on water, though presumably they could do with however the LVTs or PT boats are modeled.
Not sure if the PBY-5A/6A landing gear was strong enough to support landing on rough or unprepared airfields, though I do have a picture of a PBY-5A landing on a muddy runway in the SWPA.
ack-ack
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Do any European countries fly that a/c considering the number of fires there?
well if you don't consider Russia part of Europe then no lol
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I always thought the Westland Lysander (in addition to the Fi156 that we have) would be a good choice of a SAR aircraft, considering most of the action in game takes place over land.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Aircraft_of_the_Royal_Air_Force_1939-1945-_Westland_Lysander._CH2639.jpg)
The only problem with adding a SAR element to the game is how do you make it fun and enjoyable to play. Personally, waiting around to someone to pick me up isn't my idea of fun when I could just easily grab a new plane and take off again.
ack-ack
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I logged about 140 hours in the HU-16s operating out of Guantanamo bay in 1976. Our last operational sortie, in fact, the last operational sortie for any Navy Amphibian, was flown on August 2, 1976. It was a SAR mission and I was aboard. After that flight, the aircraft was grounded pending being ferried to the National Museum of Naval Aviation at Pensacola. A ferry crew made the flight on August 13. These guys dragged the hull in the water in Pensacola Bay to lay claim to the last water landing. Of course, they didn't come to a stop, thus it was not accepted. The BuNo was 141266.
Our other old HU-16 was flown to Davis-Monthan for storage around May of 1976. Eventually, it was purchased, repainted, and had fake 4-blade props installed. It now sits in an artificial lagoon at Universal Studios, Orlando.
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Did they ever fly these off of carriers as rescue planes during the war?
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needing a boat to take off in a flying boat would make the second one quite redundant would you not agree? , but in task groups they had ships called sea plane tenders, and these are the ships that would manage them, so they would be in a TG but not operating off of a carrier
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:airplane: While there was not much use for aircraft which could land on the water and land during the WW1 conflict, when WW2 started, it was real apparent that the U.S. military was going to need aircraft to rescue downed flyer's in the vast oceans of the world.
In 1942, the only acceptable aircraft were the Grumman "Goose" and the consolidated PBY series of aircraft. It is interesting to note that the "Goose" was used extensionally for not only high ranking transport personell, but was used by the U.S. Coast Guard up and down the Eastern Sea board area, as both a "Recon", looking for German Subs, but as a trainer also.
(http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p684/earl1937/300px-JRF-5_NAS_Jax_1942_zps32017556.jpg) This is a pic of an early "Goose" at Jacksonville Naval air station in 1942.
there were later models of the Grumman series of water aircraft, one of which is the Mallard, which the last one retired was in 1995!
(http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p684/earl1937/300px-Hu16-N3HU-071022-13-12_zpsd6a3ad18.jpg) This aircraft was used in Korean conflict and the Vietnam war, and was later re-designated the HU-16 Albatross.
Other pic's are:
(http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p684/earl1937/300px-PBY_Catalina_landing_zps04a545b2.jpg) The stories which involved the PBY aircraft are many and some made historic footnotes in history, one of the most famous was the part the PBY's played in finding the Japanese fleet during the battle of Midway. 7 PBY's were sent out looking for the fleet and each one had a call sign of "Strawberry", 1 thru 7 and "Strawberry 5" was the PBY which located the Japanese fleet. The crew of Strawberry 5 made a "boo-boo" by just saying, "many ships"!
But CNC new where each aircraft was assigned to go, so they had a good idea where they were, just not how far away. This was made famous in the Movie, "Midway", starring Charlton Heston and a host of other Hollywood stars.
I would guess the most interesting sea plane, which was not a air/sea rescue was the Martin P6M bomber. The U.S. Navy was trying to get a nuclear strike force aside from the U.S. Air force and they had Martin put this aircraft into production, but the ICBM submarines came along and that cancelled the P6M program.
(http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p684/earl1937/p6mmartinbomber_zps43a9b08e.jpg) This aircraft had no land capability and was serviced with surface ships and some submarines were equipped to service this aircraft.
(http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p684/earl1937/p6mfrontview_zps34548d57.jpg)
It would certainly be great to have the PBY aircraft in our Aces High game, but don't know how much trouble, computer wise, to install it in the game with the ability of landing both on water and land.
Here ya go, Earl:
(http://1000aircraftphotos.com/Contributions/VanTilborg/2769.jpg)
Saunders-Roe SR.A/1
Role: Flying boat fighter
First flight: 16 July 1947
Retired: 1951
Experimental
Royal Air Force
Number built: 3
Crew: 1
Length: 50 ft 0 in (14.24 m)
Wingspan: 46 ft 0 in (14.02 m)
Height: 16 ft 9 in (5.11 m)
Wing area: 415 ft² (38.6 m²)
Empty weight: 11,262 lb (5,108 kg)
Loaded weight: 16,000 lb (7,273 kg)
Powerplant: 2 × Metropolitan-Vickers Beryl MVB.2 turbojets, 3,850 lbf (17.2 kN) each
Performance
Maximum speed: 512 mph (445 knots, 824 km/h)
Endurance: 1 hour 48 min
Service ceiling: 48,000 ft (14,600 m)
Wing loading: 38.6 lb/ft² (188 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: 0.48
Armament
Guns: 4x 20 mm Hispano Mk 5
Bombs: 2x 1000 lb (455 kg) bombs or rockets
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/F2Y_Sea_Dart_2.jpg/300px-F2Y_Sea_Dart_2.jpg)
Convair F2Y Sea Dart
Role: Seaplane fighter
First flight: 14 January 1953
Retired: 1957
Status: Cancelled, museum storage
United States Navy
Number built: 5
Crew: 1
Length: 52 ft 7 in (16 m)
Wingspan: 33 ft 8 in (10.3 m)
Height: 16 ft 2 in (4.9 m)
Wing area: 568 ft² (53 m²)
Empty weight: 12,625 lb (5,730 kg)
Loaded weight: 16,500 lb (7,480 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 21,500 lb (9,750 kg)
Powerplant: 2 × Westinghouse J46-WE-2 {testbed: J43-WE-32 w/ 3,400 lbf each.[6]} turbojets, 6,100.[7] lbf (27 kN) each
Performance (estimated[8])
Maximum speed: 825 mph (1,325 km/h)
Range: 513 mi (446 nm, 826 km)
Service ceiling: 54,800 ft (16,700 m)
Rate of climb: 17,100 ft/min (86.7 m/s)
Wing loading: 29.0 lb/ft² (142 kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: .56 (max loaded).96 (empty)
Armament
Guns: 4 × 20 mm (0.79 in) cannon
Rockets: Unguided rockets
Missiles: 2 × air-to-air missiles
:D
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Do any European countries fly that a/c considering the number of fires there?
Yes. The Be 200 is certified in Europe and a number of countries in southern Europe have leased it from Russia during the forest fire seasons the past few years, including Portugal, Italy and Greece.
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needing a boat to take off in a flying boat would make the second one quite redundant would you not agree?
Not really. The idea is that if a plane is shot down, you launch one of these seaplanes, or flying boat, to go find and rescue the pilot. You can get a plane out there much faster than one of the other ships in your task force. A seaplane tender would probably not be able to keep up with your carrier task force. Thus, the idea to carry seaplanes on the carrier.
Looking at the pictures, I am thinking it would probably take up too much space on the CV. But if you have a smaller version, it might be worth it.
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Cruiser scout planes could, and did, do that.
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sea plane tenders could absolutely keep up with carrier groups, as many of them were converted from other ships including wait for it... aircraft carriers and battleships, but if I recall correctly a lot of the time in the open ocean, flying boats were just used to find the pilot drop supplies and rafts for them, and keep track of their location so that a ship could pick them up
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American seaplane tenders were hard pressed to hit 20kts and were new construction or converted freighters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_seaplane_carriers_by_country
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I logged about 140 hours in the HU-16s operating out of Guantanamo bay in 1976. Our last operational sortie, in fact, the last operational sortie for any Navy Amphibian, was flown on August 2, 1976. It was a SAR mission and I was aboard. After that flight, the aircraft was grounded pending being ferried to the National Museum of Naval Aviation at Pensacola. A ferry crew made the flight on August 13. These guys dragged the hull in the water in Pensacola Bay to lay claim to the last water landing. Of course, they didn't come to a stop, thus it was not accepted. The BuNo was 141266.
Our other old HU-16 was flown to Davis-Monthan for storage around May of 1976. Eventually, it was purchased, repainted, and had fake 4-blade props installed. It now sits in an artificial lagoon at Universal Studios, Orlando.
:airplane: Great post and the kind of replies I like to see, getting first hand info on the aircraft which I feature. WW, someone told me that you flew the Douglas DC-6B for the Marines for a while and that you have some "Connie" time. If so, would love to see some posts from you concerning your experience in those aircraft.