Share
Blog
Print
Email
BookmarkA seaplane is an aircraft designed to take off and land (correctly, though less commonly termed, "alight") upon water.
There are two types of seaplane: the floatplane and the flying boat.
A floatplane has slender pontoons mounted under the fuselage.
Two floats are common, but many float planes of World War II had a single float under the main fuselage and two small floats on the wings.
Only the "floats" of a floatplane normally come into contact with water.
The fuselage remains above water.
Some small land aircraft can be modified to become float planes.
In a flying boat, the main source of buoyancy is the fuselage, which acts much like a ship's hull in the water.
Most flying boats have small floats mounted on their wings to keep them stable.
Seaplanes can only take off and land on water with little or no wave action and, like other aircraft, have trouble in extreme weather..
For more information about the topic Seaplane, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:
Aircraft — An aircraft is any machine capable of atmospheric flight. A first division by design among aircraft is between lighter-than-air, aerostat, and ... > read more
Military aviation — Military aviation is used to attack or defend a country through the sky. There are many types of military aircraft, but the basic types of military ... > read more
Sonic boom — A sonic boom is the audible component of a shock wave in air. The term is commonly used to refer to the air shocks caused by the supersonic flight of ... > read more
Cruise missile — A cruise missile is a guided missile which uses a lifting wing and most often a jet propulsion system to allow sustained flight. Cruise missiles are, ... > read more
