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Floatplanes
A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, making the vehicle an amphibious aircraft. British usage is to call floatplanes "seaplanes" rather than use the term "seaplane" to refer to both floatplanes and flying boats. Use Since World War II and the advent of helicopters, advanced aircraft carriers and land-based aircraft, military seaplanes have stopped being used. This, coupled with the increased availability of civilian airstrips, has greatly reduced the number of flying boats being built. However, many modern civilian aircraft have floatplane variants, most offered as third-party modifications under a supplemental type certificate (STC), although there are several aircraft manufacturers that build floatplanes from scratch. These floatplanes have found their niche as one type ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nakajima A6M2-N
The Nakajima A6M2-N (Navy Type 2 Interceptor/Fighter-Bomber) was a single-crew floatplane based on the Mitsubishi A6M Zero Model 11. The World War II Allied names for Japanese aircraft, Allied reporting name for the aircraft was Rufe. Design and development While waiting on the completion of the Kawanishi N1K, Nakajima was chosen by the Imperial Japanese Navy to provide an interim floatplane, which they did by modifying Mitsubishi's A6M-2 Model 11. Mitsubishi was not offered the contract as they were already overburdened. Nakajima proposed that they could churn out 900 aircraft in under a year. The design of the plane itself wasn't much different than the A6M-2 it was based on. The retractable, wheeled undercariage was removed and plated over. This was replaced by a large central float and one cantilever stablizer float under each wing. The tail was straightened out and the under fuselage received a type of two-section "keel" designed to counteract movement by the central float. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
