Friday 29 June 2018

Flying Boats Today? Part-Two.

Viable usages!

We tend to think what was popular seventy years ago would not be today, but many nations with little land and plenty of water are considering the re-introduction of the flying boats to save the development of prime agricultural lands!

Canada, China, Germany and Russia lead the way in flying boats, but the U.S and Japan have revitalised their own boats to re-join their maritime fleets. The flying boat is a very versatile platform, with the obvious they can also be used for military and civil transportation of good and people!

Their advantages are long range and the ability to land on the sea working with shipping in various roles, more to do with the military. Both Japan and the U.S.A. at one time used their aircraft in the search and rescue role and this is now a viable option once more to cover their vast coastlines and islands?

Wednesday 13 June 2018

Aerobatic/Racing Aircraft. One.

New Concepts?

Older ideas from the bi-plane era and smaller lighter material has moved us away from agricultural spraying to aerobatic displays and racing. Now some of these bi-planes did put on shows back in the 1920' to 40's in the various showmen and stunt shows, but they seemed to have died out with the introduction of the jet age in the 1950's, when speed was all the new thing-craze?

But in recent years there has been a demand for air racing and many successful light training aircraft have been super-charged to meet this demand. Thus so has stunt flying returned and aerobatic displays, we will not cover the types of aircraft in this blog because there are so many!

That will be something for you to check out for yourself, meanwhile there are also many other machines, home or kit builds that meet the requirement of Micro-lights that too are meeting this new demand, Gyro-copters are coming back into the airshows around the world.

Flying Boats Today! One.

Beriev, Canadair, and Dornier?

These are some of the main manufacturers of flying boats today around the world and it is Russia that is leading the way with its Beriev B200 firefighter and other variants. This aircraft was based on its former Soviet military version developed for maritime reconnaissance and it is not clear if it is still operational?

Other manufactures such as Canadian Canadair developed two smaller flying boats that have had some success in the firefighting role the CL-214/215. But in recent work in both the United States and Portugal aircraft and crews were lost in wild fires work!

The third builder is German Dornier, who having much experience has opted for a smaller pleasure model, but this still has other options with it in relation to patrol work? The Peoples Republic of China have now developed its own long-range four engine flying boat making it the largest in the world, currently this is believed to be only a military venture?

Both the U.S. Navy and Japan have also taken a fresh interest in revitalising their last designs with modern electronics and weapon systems for sea, and coastal patrols. We will look at these later on to see more about them!

Movable Drilling Platforms. Two.

The ability to build a rig at Sea!

This is to be the future for gas and oil drilling at sea, it will cut out the shipyards and the need to tow rigs by barges! The two reasons for this change is the costs in ordering and the insurance, you think you have problems each year with your car?

These vessels will still have to dock for certain components, but Meccano and Lego ideas have now come to fruition in the drilling industries? Crew transfers may be made directly from these vessels and pumping to a hub if to far out in that of laying cable!

Much has been learnt in this industry over the last fifty years, despite the many accidents! This technology will open the Oceans of the world up to exploration and with the melting of the North pole the possibility to take advantage of seasonal drilling. It is also hoped that in time these ships and their larger variants will also be enabled to disable rigs new and old?