The History of the Flying Boat Era
The first seaplanes were glider designs and were tested in the early 1900s although most did not fly. The first flight of a powered seaplane was before the first world war and its military potential was taken up. The first war brought the seaplane design and engine design along quickly and the multi-engine flying boat was designed and flown for military use. After the war the airlines began new services... The Boeing B-1 was the first commercial seaplane but it did not do well commercially due to the large amount of ex-military float and sea planes available.In 1935 PAA introduced three Martin M-130 long-range flying boats with a range of 3500nms at 150mph. The first one delivered was called 'China Clipper' and the PAA Martin 130 was known from that point as the China Clipper although the other two Martin boats had different names. In 1935 this type along with the S-42 began trans-Pacific flights to China (San Francisco - Honolulu - Midway - Wake - Guam - Hong Kong with a stop at Manilla after PAA won the Foreign Air Mail Route 42 for the Philippines. Regional services were flown on the Chinese coast with Dolphin flying boats.
The British Empire routes were served by TEAL (New Zealand), Qantas (Australia) and Imperial Airways (Britain) during the 1930s with the Short S.23 Empire 'C' Class flying boat. The Qantas Empires had names which began with 'C' to reflect the aircraft's class. The Imperial Airways S.23s were ordered when the Empire Air Mail Scheme came into force so that postage between points in the British Empire would be cheap. These flew alongside the QANTAS Empire boats. They flew a joint route from Southampton to Brisbane. The Saunders-Roe Princess flying boat was the last of the large flying boat airliners to be designed and along with the Spruce Goose in the USA it was out of time. This beautiful photo of the prototype Princess gives some idea of where airline flying boats were going when the landplanes came of age. It was destined for BOAC on the trans-Atlantic route from Southampton to New York carrying 105 passengers. Its ten Bristol Proteus engines were housed in six engine nacelles with the outer nacelles having only one engine in each. It didn't go into production and was scrapped in 1967.
The End of an Era
The end of the flying boat airline era came after the second world war. The flying boats were designed because there were originally very few long runways that could handle a large airliner. Also the navigation aids of the time were minimal and bad weather often meant that planes had to land with a cross-wind. The flying boat overcame all of these things neatly with ready made water runways available all over the world.
After the war the world had a large amount of landplanes (ex bombers and transports) and lots of concrete runways on ex-military bases so it was natural that the airlines should restart airline services with the DC-3s, DC-4s and DC-6s that were to be purchased from the USAAF cheaply. Most post-war airlines restarted with the Douglas C-47 (DC-3) Dakota in this way
Our Mission
To attempt to re-kindle some of the spirit of flight and adventure these amazing pioneers must have had, taking on the world in a way most people only dreamed of then and now.
Our Vision or challenge, is difficult, unique, exiting but most of all it's possible with the support of fellow enthusiasts, pilots and people that actually had the privileged opportunity to fly in these amazing machines.
Ultimately the credit for the flying boats have to be awarded to Glen Curtis - the father of Seaplane aviation. We have however selected two "modern" flying boats no longer in production, but which have inspired us to plan and conceive our Flying Boat Venture -
the Grumman G-21 Goose and Grumman HU-16 Albatross.
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