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Subject: What ever happened to Seaplanes?
leoinnyc    11/2/2003 10:34:59 AM
I know that this is probably the wrong forum for this question, but why don't we still use seaplanes? They seem so useful, both for the military and civil aviation. They could resupply ships at sea, be little sub tenders; perform major rescue ops at sea. An air tanker varient could fly into the theatre from CONUS during a big conflict, take on jet fuel directly from a supply ship and hugely enhance the Navy's tanker capabilities for like, no money. They'd also be great for SEAL and Marine Recon insertion. I can think of lots of other stuff. And they'd be a natural compliment to the Mobile Offshore Base concept. And for civil air, they'd do wonders for airport congestion anywhere near the ocean or a big lake. Here in NY we have a major airport congestion issue, despite having three major airports. But we've got a huge harbor and underused port facilities. And anyway, when they're not being used as seaplanes, they can always operate from regular runways, so there's no tradeoff in capability. What do y'all think?
 
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sentinel28a    RE:What ever happened to Seaplanes?   2/12/2004 3:27:55 PM
I wonder if the Japanese Shin-Maywas can be equipped with Harpoons?
 
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wagner95696    RE:C-130 seaplane   2/24/2004 12:31:54 AM
Lockheed actually proposed a floatplane version of the C-130. The Coast Guard was interested but it died in Congressional appropriations hearings. Let's face it, the only thing the Coast Guard is ever going to get is other peoples discards and hand me downs.
 
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wagner95696    RE:What ever happened to Seaplanes?   2/24/2004 12:37:09 AM
At the time Seamaster was being introduced into service I thought 'what a great use for a lot of demobilized SBN's'. Convert most of the missile silos into fuel storage tanks and the rest into ordnance magazines. The nuclear propulsion would give them worldwide submerged range and great time on station (again submerged). The perfect seaplane tender.
 
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fearthefuture       9/10/2009 10:28:17 AM
I guess you are asking about military uses.  Sea planes get lots of work as water bombers, air taxies, tourist craft, and i bet there are some civilian agentcies in places like Alaska that use them. 
 
Seaplanes in combat, as I remember, were used as costal patrol and SAR.  Between  Radar and satellites the patrol aspect is covered. If need be convential  fixed wing craft can do the job better. 
 The SAR work is done by Helos a fixed wing aircaft does the spoting and the Helo  does the pick up.  
 
A previous reponse talked about the mantiance and cost of seaplanes being very high.  That is very true.
 
I think seaplanes  are great and used to dream of flying tourists around in a big fat seaplane when i was younger.  
 
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fearthefuture       9/10/2009 10:32:13 AM
During WWII the Brits had a plan for an ice burg ship.  But the war was over before they finished 
 
If someone put something like that in water now, the enemy would just nuke it  .
 
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flamingknives       9/10/2009 5:47:38 PM
From what I've seen about Pykrete (Ice with wood shavings in it), which is what the iceberg carriers were to be made of, and the projected size of the thing a nuke would have to be fairly substantial to actually hurt it.

Plus there's the issue that going nuclear is liable to encourage reciprocity.
 
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