Depends on if they want modern piston engines, or want to make it a turbo-prop; not clear which engine type is being most considered.
Warbirds Thread
- Thread starter PsihoKekec
- Start date
US air force spec ops wanted a flying boat so much they investigated modifying C-130 to be amphibious and trained with Japanese flying boats.
U.S. Air Force Trains With Japan’s US-2 Flying Boat As It Looks Forward To Its Own Amphibious Plane
While plans for an amphibious MC-130 transport take shape, Cope North 2022 provided an opportunity to see the capabilities of the US-2 firsthand.
www.thedrive.com
For anything Pacific related as in China related, there big advantage flying boats bring to the table is range and endurance beyond anything helicopters can offer. V-22 can get kinda close, but it's a maintenance hog and still can't land on water, which has its own advantages for deploying and recovering boats and drones, something both rescue services and special forces put a premium on.
Also USCG and many equivalent services elsewhere will be all over these planes.
Turbobprops, that's for sure, this article has some more info. Technically there would be no advantage to doing otherwise, turboprops allow some serious boosting of vital performance stats above the WW2 model.
Catalina Aircraft announces iconic WW2 flying boat rebirth
Catalina Aircraft announced the revival of the legendary WW2-era Catalina flying boat as the Catalina II Amphibious Turboprop
www.aerotime.aero
Doomsought
Well-known member
No, not at all. Tilt rotors are medium range transports, better than helicopters, that work even when you have limited options for landing.
Flying boats on the other-hand are long duration patrol craft. They are great for multi-day long missions in a way few aircraft can match. The only things in the sky with better endurance are airships and satellites, which both have their own problems that don't apply to fixed wing aircraft.
The figures given for Catalina 2 definitely point it towards being a much better transport than the original one.
bintananth
behind a desk
I'd offer both options if I was making a flying boat that size. Turboprops for all the reasons - weight being a big one - they've mostly replaced large piston engines in aircraft designs.
The piston engine option: a 9-cyl. 1-row or 14-cyl. 2-row naturally aspirated radial. That's about as simple as a 750+hp piston engine is gonna get. Rate it for 87 unleaded and any marina which sells gasoline can refuel it. Granted, that'll take "awhile" if they have to use a boat and 30-gal gas caddies or 5-gal jerry cans to do it ...
Yeah, keeping an option for a piston that can run on a more things, and be serviced by more people than turbo-props can, would probably help with the civie market.
I expect a bunch of the bush plane/remote cargo groups in Alaska will be interested in these too.
bintananth
behind a desk
Might be too big for them. They also need STOL.
A PBY needs a roughly 2.5 mile stretch of straight smooth water with no obstructions when there's no wind. It ain't STOL.
Most of larger civilian commercial planes for that kind of stuff are also turboprops for the same performance purposes. Let's be honest, if you shell out for a plane like this and can afford the sheer amount of fuel to fill it, you aren't desperately needing it to be cheap and simple.
It's not STOL, but coastal ports and larger lakes will do.
You obviously haven't looked at how many large lakes there are in Alaska, nor how many coastal communities not on any road or rail system.
A new build PBY would likely be a very useful plane for a lot of the communities in Alaska, and would give the Coasties a new option to use as well.
Eh, very few legit flying boats in Alaska, more just Cessna's and Bombardier's with floats, plus the odd Super-cub.
Something like the PBY would do wonders for the coastal towns in SouthEast Alaska, particularly now that the Alaska Maritime Highway ferry's are getting taken out of service left and right for lack of funds. A PBY is a lot cheaper to operate than what amounts to multiple small cargo ship/car carrier/passenger liners all in one.
Blasterbot
Well-known member
I don't know how calm the seas need to be for flying boats, but Alaska gets a lot of wind on the coasts if I remember right.
It's also going to be capable of landing on land like some of the old Catalina variants.
Also some smaller transports like this can have floats, even though smaller, as i mentioned they are usually turboprops anyway.
de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter - Wikipedia
With a fraction of the capacity though, it may take 1-2 cars, at a price equal to a considerable fraction of their value, so probably not worth it for providing regular service.
They give the details for this one right in the article. Sea state 2 for the civilian one and 3 for the special purpose one.
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Oh yes, very much so, however there are numerous sheltered bays as well, and if you had a 'village PYB' for each outlying communities, it can work. These would be amphibs too, which means they can go to normal airstrips as well.
Eh, they only have like 3-4 for the whole state, and they are not regular visitors; maybe once on the way up, once on the way back to Washington state most of the time.It's also going to be capable of landing on land like some of the old Catalina variants.
Also some smaller transports like this can have floats, even though smaller, as i mentioned they are usually turboprops anyway.
For Coasties though, yeah, this has potential to be a sales hit with how much of their work it can do, and cheaper than a helicopter would do it at that.de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
With a fraction of the capacity though, it may take 1-2 cars, at a price equal to a considerable fraction of their value, so probably not worth it for providing regular service.
There was a point people were worried about about the whole ferry service getting shutdown due to how bad Alaska's situation is financially.
I rode on one of their larger, maybe their largest ship; doubles as emergency/oil spill response vessel with helipad, and can fit semi's/RV's, so likely last to be retired. Could probably act as a decent PBY tender if they came into service.
The problem with amphibian flying boats is simply that they are a very expensive niche design, and while they're still *superb* within their specialty, there's no longer enough mainstream interest to subsidize mass production.
paulobrito
Well-known member
In the Pacific, with the immense areas of recon/patrol, they are a nice thing to have. Both the US and Chinese forces are looking at them because of that.
The U.S. has demonstrated real but minimal interest; if we were seriously interested, we would have funded development.
This project shows there is enough. There was just a major break in demand, probably filled with old production, flying boat conversions of lighter designs, helicopters, and Chinese production.
I don't think it really does. "Chinese production" of flying boats is just seven Harbin SH-5s and possible future production of the AVIC AG-600 Kunlong, all exclusively for the Chinese military with no export sales. Similarly, all of the breathlessly reported "interest" in the vaunted ShinMaywa US-2 has resulted in the grand total of none foreign sales.
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But there is a shitload of foreign operators of other models used around the world though.
Canadair CL-415 - Wikipedia
Canadair CL-215 - Wikipedia
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
It's out of production though and it's unclear when it will be restarted