Seaplanes: books - history and models

Jet Flying Boats

During the Second World War, more than 9,000 flying boats were produced by the main protagonists, fulfilling a multitude of roles including maritime reconnaissance, bombing, fleet spotting, search and rescue, long-range transport and communications. However, time was running out, and a little over a decade after the end of the war, the military flying boat would appear to be a dying breed on the verge of extinction.

It would be another twenty years before a new breed of multi-engine flying boats would leave the drawing boards of leading aerospace companies to successfully fulfil, not only their traditional military roles of maritime reconnaissance and search and rescue, but one at which they have proved to be very adept, that of aerial fire-fighting.

Currently the twin-turboprop powered twelve-seat Dornier Seastar amphibian is being built in China, which is also developing the AG600 search and rescue amphibian for the Chinese Navy.
There have been a number of successful turboprop conversion of piston-engine flying boats such as the Grumman Mallard and Canadair CL-215 amphibians.

In this book, aviation historian David Oliver covers the little-known flying-boat legacy of the Second World War, which includes jet fighter flying boat projects; the jet maritime reconnaissance flying boat development in the Cold War; the successes and failures of turbo-prop flying boats; converted turbo-prop flying boats; as well as the new horizons for flying boats in the twenty-first century.

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Fabulous Flying Boats - A History of the World's Passenger Flying Boats

The history of the development and operations of flying boats in the early twentieth century is a vibrant one, full of colourful characters and experimentation. In 'Fabulous Flying Boats', Leslie Dawson captures this spirit of dynamism, reminding us of the most successful early pioneers of the seaplanes development, including a little known and oft-overlooked rival to the Wright Brothers, working to put their mutual successes in context.

He goes on to describe, in clear and vivid detail, and using first hand-accounts, what it was like to be aboard one of the resulting huge passenger flying boats, as air crew and as a passenger. He also recounts the part played by the military boats inevitably seconded to such use.

Incredibly well researched, the narrative embraces the globe-trotting air routes, from Europe to the Far East and to the Americas, and is well supported with evocative images from private and corporate collections, and the worlds aviation museums. The in-depth Appendix is virtually a book in itself.

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Flying Boats : Air Travel in the Golden Age

"Flying Boats: Air Travel in the Golden Age" sets out to do justice to a time of glamorous, unhurried air travel, unrecognisable to most of today's air travellers, but sorely missed by some.
During the 1930s, long-distance air travel was the preserve of the flying boat, which transported well-heeled passengers in ocean-liner style and comfort across the oceans.

But then the Second World War came, and things changed. Suddenly, landplanes were more efficient, and in abundance: long concrete runways had been constructed during the war that could be used by a new generation of large transport aircraft; and endless developments in aircraft meant they could fly faster and for further distances.
Commercial flying boat services resumed, but their days would be numbered.

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High Hulls : Flying Boats of the 1930s and 1940s

For a time, the flying boat was seen as the way of the future. These aircraft, so strange and foreign to the modern mind, once criss-crossed the world and fulfilled essential military roles. In his latest book for Fonthill, Charles Bain looks at the golden age of the flying boat, when these sometimes strange and often beautiful vessels spanned the globe.
These vessels - a combination of ship and airplane - found themselves working as patrol aircraft, passenger aircraft, transports, and even as combat aircraft.

This volume contains their stories, from memorable aircraft such as the Short Sunderland and Boeing 314 Clipper, to the craft that roamed the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War, to forgotten giants from Saunders-Roe and even strange jet fighters that once landed like ducks. It even includes the flying boat that has not let time get in the way of doing its job - the Martin Mars.

Each of these aircraft has a story worthy of the telling, and often a memorable role to play in the history of aviation. 'High Hulls' delves deeply into a long-vanished part of aviation's golden age.

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Ailes de feu - les pompiers du ciel

In France, in the early 1960s, a man realized that if nothing was done to stop the scourge of fire, all the wooded areas in the south of our country risked going up in smoke. This man, Francis Arrighi, would fight to convince the highest authorities to set up aerial means to fight forest fires.
The creation of the Marignane Air Base dates back to June 24 1963, with the assignment of the first two Catalina water bomber seaplanes... Since that date, the "Pelicans" - radio code adopted by the water bombers - have spread their yellow and fiery red wings over the scrubland of Provence and the Corsican maquis. Over the years, the Civil Security fleet has grown and diversified, including new aircraft, testing new concepts, new weapons...
And armament is definitely a question in this war which, when the good weather returns, is declared tirelessly, innately after year.

Thanks to the work carried out for more than twenty years by Alain Ernoult, we discover the action of the crews "on fire", the images undoubtedly the most spectacular made to date on the subject. We find there, through the "Ernoult eye", at the same time the machines, the men, the action, the fire and... the danger, which is omnipresent. The risk inherent in the exceptional conditions of these shots shines through and transcends the image conveyed by these extraordinary men.

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Faszination Wasserflugzeuge

Seaplanes exude a primal fascination because they take you to places that are usually lonely, remote, and accordingly untouched and beautiful. Places that the average package tourist rarely gets lost in. And so the versatile seaplanes have the aura of the classic bush plane that can be found in places like Canada, Alaska and the Caribbean. And increasingly here in Europe too.

In his book, Ingo Bauernfeind describes the individual aircraft types and their areas of operation, accompanied by beautiful photographs that make you want to immediately set off on a float to a log cabin in Canada.

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