What are these hanging from pontoons?

[+RAF_Louvert]

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Maybe my experience with seaplanes in Lousy Anna has biased my opinion, but the waters hereabouts are always full of floating driftwood, basking alligators, floats for trot lines and crayfish traps, Cajuns passed out drunk in pirogues, etc., plus there are always tree stumps just below the surface. These things are very hard on pontoons (to the point that seaplanes never stop on the water because they're leaking so badly), so I'd imagine they'd just tear hydrofoils right off. Plus, of course, once in the air, the hydrofoils add a lot of drag compared to a stepped pontoon.

 

 

BH, we have some of the same issues with things floating in the water around here as well, though not to the extent you describe. However, where these planes operated that was of much less concern I am sure. As to the drag those hydrofoils created in the air, I would see that as a non-issue when compared to that Rube Goldberg affair holding the pontoons onto the plane. I imagine it was more immediate to get the damned thing up out of the water first and I'm betting stepped pontoons would not have done the trick due to the same initial amount of drag against their surface, (more actually as you could have had more square inches of surface area in the water depending on the depth of the steps). If you can't get enough forward speed to actually start lifting the pontoons out of the water the stepped sides would offer no advantage. The hydrofoils must have been the ticket in this particular case.

 

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[Mr_Dirt]

The Japenese used a simular wooden structure on their airplane torpedoes that were designed to break off when they hit the water. This design stopped the torpedo from diving so deep. This made it possible for the torpedoes to be used at Pearl Harbor.

[NS13Jarhead]

I'm just distubed by the concept of two counter-rotating engines INSIDE the fuselage!

[Flyby PC]

So was I NS13Jarhead. It obviously did work, but I was mulling over how well it worked. Then it occured to me, that he might actually have been way ahead of his time. Forget the engines are prop driven, and we take it for granted that most jet fighters have inline engines for better aerodynamics, but that concept was 40 to 50 years later. I don't think there's any connection, and almost certainly it didn't evolve from this particular 'streamlined' configuration, but I'm guessing the aerodynamics perhaps wasn't as mad as it looks - primative, but sound(ish).

[NS13Jarhead]

Flyby,

 

Who knows why they came up with that idea? It might have been that they felt the wings were not strong enough and were worried about the torque stress on the wings if they mounted them out there. Or maybe they didn't trust that both would keep running for the whole mission and if one failed, it'd rip the airframe apart.

 

Counter-rotating blades have been used on helicopters to cancel out torque effects, so maybe that's what they were thinking 40 years too early.

 

In any event, I'd love to see the rationale of the design board. The plane obviously had many features that were ahead of its time.