Not a bad idea, but Moscow soon realized ICBMs were way better.
Here s What You Need to Remember: Seaplanes have always had a military dimension. In World Wars I and II, cruisers and battleships carried them for scouting and to spot the fall of the ship’s gunfire. Long-range floatplanes like Japan’s Kawanishi H8K could fly 4,500 miles across the Pacific.
With airline passengers crammed like sardines, it’s hard to remember there was a time when airliners were more like ocean liners. In the 1930s, seaplanes were queens of the sky. Clipper seaplanes like the Boeing 314 were the 747s of the era, carrying passengers on long flights across the Atlantic and Pacific.
MIAMI – Today in Aviation, we celebrate the first flights of the Junkers Ju 52 (1932), the Antonov An-10 (1957), and the Yakovlev Yak-42 (1975).
The Junkers Ju 52/3m (also known as Tante Ju (“Aunt Ju”) and Iron Annie) is a German transport aircraft designed and manufactured by Junkers.
The Antonov An-10 (Russian: Aнтонов н-10; NATO reporting name: Cat) is a Soviet-designed four-engined turboprop passenger transport aircraft.
The Yakovlev Yak-42 (Russian: ковлeв к-42; NATO reporting name: “Clobber”) is a three-engined mid-range passenger jet with a capacity of 100/120 passengers. It was the Soviet Union’s first airliner to be powered by modern high-bypass turbofan engines.
JU Air Junkers Ju 52/3m HB/HOS in flight over Austria (July 2013). Photo: Bernd K – https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/7645461, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38112175
Today seaplanes seem an anachronism cute flying machines that haul tourists in remote places like Alaska
Here s What You Need to Remember:
With airline passengers crammed like sardines, it’s hard to remember there was a time when airliners were more like ocean liners. In the 1930s, seaplanes were queens of the sky. Clipper seaplanes like the Boeing 314 were the 747s of the era, carrying passengers on long flights across the Atlantic and Pacific.
Today seaplanes seem an anachronism cute flying machines that haul tourists in remote places like Alaska. But for a period during the early Cold War, those floating flying machines would have been dropping nuclear bombs over America and Russia.