seaplane

seaplane, airplane designed to take off from and alight on water. The two most common types are the floatplane, whose fuselage is supported by struts attached to two or more pontoon floats, and the flying boat, whose boat-hull fuselage is constructed with the buoyancy and strength necessary to land and float on water. Amphibians may be of either of these types with the addition of landing gear, enabling them to take off from and alight on either land or water. The first practical seaplane was constructed and flown by the American Glenn H. Curtiss in 1911. The seaplane developed rapidly in the 1920s and 30s, and for a time it was the largest and fastest aircraft in the world. Because the flotation structures offered greater resistance to the air than wheel-type landing gear, seaplanes were until recently less efficient and slower for any given horsepower requirement than land-based aircraft. However, developments in small and retractable flotation structures have eliminated that inefficiency and have made possible supersonic jet-powered seaplanes.

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seaplane

Aircraft that can land, float, and take off on water. The first practical seaplanes were built and flown in 1911–12 by Glenn H. Curtiss, who developed both the float seaplane, essentially a land plane with pontoons instead of landing wheels, and the flying boat, a boatlike plane that combined a main float and fuselage in a single body. A retractable landing wheel was later added to create an amphibian aircraft. By the late 1920s seaplanes held the speed and range records for aircraft. During the 1940s their utility diminished with the building of long-range land-based airplanes, new airports, and aircraft carriers.