"Seaplane museum resource" Topic

Foyne's Seaplane Museum in Ireland was heavily involved in the trans-atlantic trade in the 30's and 40's. It was the eastern terminal for the commercial seaplane traffic.
link

next time your "not-Indiana" character needs to get from the US to somewhere in Europe fast, he may be passing through here.

The big seaplanes are cool…but I still love the Grumman Goose the best.

Pembroke Dock in West Wales was also a major transatlantic flying-boat terminus, as well as being a massive military flying-boat base. Pan Am operated a Clipper service there from the 1930s and throughout WW2. The transatlantic flight was performed in two 'hops': they'd stop off in Bermuda or the Azores.

Around the world by flying boat…a mode of travel nearly as romantic as the great airships, and much more successful.

Wake and Midway Islands, and other key Pacific airbases were developed in the 1930s as bases for commercial flying boat operations.

There are many engineering and operational problems associated with water operations. Why didn't they just build the things as land planes? Was it because 1930s airfields couldn't handle planes as large as the big four-engine passenger flying boats?

If I understand the history, it wasn't until WWII that it became ubiquitous for big airfields to be able to operate four engine heavy bombers and transports. End of the flying boat era.

Hi Zippy, yes that's essentially it. Large hardened runways capable of taking large, heavy, long-range aircraft were as rare as hen's teeth until the necessities of war produced them. Stretches of water on the other hand, could be found virtually everywhere and required little maintenance.

That said, I did once know a man who was the only pilot to have successfully landed a Sunderland on dry land… The exploit is on Youtube. I can't give you the direct link, as the work computer won't let me find it, but google for 'Gordon Singleton Sunderland RAF Angle'.