Where Are the Seaplanes?

It is a commonly understood maxim of war that conflict accelerates the rate of change and innovation.  Military historians usually concentrate on the rapid rate of technical innovation and how the use of new weaponry dramatically changes the way wars are fought.

These fascinating technological changes are easy to see.  Aviation in World War II, for example, began with the military still using cloth-covered biplanes, but by the time the war was over, both rocket and jet planes were being flown.  Unfortunately, nowhere does mankind show more creativity and innovation than when improving the ways we can kill each other.  

Almost forgotten—at least by military historians—are the ways that war changes society, too.  In the twentieth century, America’s wars helped end segregation, boosted the status of women, founded new cities, and improved health care by promoting the use of antibiotics and streamlining the ways that health care was delivered.  The HMO, for example, was developed to provide medical care to the workers who built Liberty Ships at the Kaiser Shipyards.  Today, Kaiser Permanente serves 12 million members.

Among the forgotten social changes brought on by that war is one that has affected almost everyone alive today.  During the decade before the war, the most common method of transcontinental air travel was by using a flying boat.  Huge lumbering seaplanes connected America with Europe, island-hopped across the Pacific, and made regular trips to Central and South America.  

The flying public—what little there was of it—liked the idea of flying boats.  If something should happen to the plane, it could safely land in the middle of the ocean and await rescue (perhaps done quickly by another flying boat).  And these huge flying boats were comfortable, with large roomy seats that could be converted to full bunks, as well as lounges where passengers could relax, eating their luxurious meals in a dining room crewed by chefs hired away from four-star hotels.  This kind of luxury was a necessity to satisfy wealthy passengers who were paying the equivalent of today's $15,000 for a nineteen-hour flight from New York to London.  These luxurious planes were obviously the wave of the future, according to anyone who knew about them. 

Planes like the Boeing Flying Clippers were the standard of luxury.  These planes were 106 feet long and carried a crew of 11 that tended to the 36 passengers as the plane cruised at less that 200 mph across the Atlantic.  The only flying boat larger than the Clippers was the Spruce Goose, (actually officially called the H4 Hercules)—a plane that was designed to carry 750 men over 3000 miles at the incredible speed of 250 mph.  (Though Howard Hughes designed, built, and piloted the plane on its only flight, it was actually Henry Kaiser, the man who built the Liberty Boats and started the first HMO, who came up with the idea for the plane.)

The safety record for land-based planes surviving a ditching at sea is poor, even today.  There are a few surprising stories of planes forced to land in the ocean without casualties (the miraculous story of Pan Am Flight 943 comes to mind), but the public preferred the idea of a safe flying boat.

Flying boats had another advantage over land-based aircraft:  In the decades before the war, few metropolitan areas either in America or abroad had the large amount of open land required to locate an airport and the few towns that did have an airfield usually had muddy, grass-covered runways that were too short for all but the smallest of planes.  Large bodies of water, however, could be found close to almost every large city anywhere in the world.

Even today, over a third of the world’s population lives within an hour’s drive of an ocean.  Add in large rivers and lakes, and the number of sites at which seaplanes could be used goes up to serve over half the population of the world.  Even here in New Mexico, I live within just a few miles of the mighty Rio Grande.  (And while that river has water in it only about six months a year, the entire state will have beach front property as soon as the ‘Big One’ hits California.)

Even in pre-war America, with a population just over a third the size of today’s, the cost of buying and clearing enough land to build runways a mile and half long in already urbanized areas was too cost prohibitive for most cities to even contemplate.  Then, the war started and airports, with new long and wide concrete runways became a military priority in every country.  Within just a few years, it would become hard to find a large city in either America or Europe that lacked a decent airport.

During the war, flying boats were used successfully for reconnaissance and rescue, but large, land-based aircraft were being built by the tens of thousands and each new generation of planes was larger and faster than the previous models.  While seaplanes were used during the war, they were smaller, hardier work horses like the PBY Catalina, not the flying luxurious flying boats that carried rich passengers.

Years ago, I knew a retired doctor who had served in World War II as a navigator aboard B-17’s flying over Europe.  After his plane reached 25 missions, almost a miracle at the time, the crew was sent home.  Eventually, he was redeployed as a navigator on a PBY in the South Pacific.  According to him, his actual job on the plane was to keep track of a rubber hammer and a bag of golf tees.  After every water landing, he would race around the bottom hull of the plane looking for popped rivets, promptly hammering in a golf tee to stop the leak before the plane sank.  While I didn’t swallow this story whole, I’m pretty sure it is somewhere near the truth.

Those old flying boats, like the Boeing Clippers, were too slow to fly in a war zone and were grounded for the rest of the war.  Not a single example would survive the next decade.  If you want to see one today, the closest you will come is a non-flying replica in a museum in Ireland.

With the war’s end, land-based aircraft were easier to produce, safer to fly, cheaper to operate, and were much easier for pilots to learn how to fly.  The day of the flying boat, except for a few limited special operations, was over.  One company thought otherwise and tried one last grand experiment to revive the transatlantic use of seaplanes.

In 1943, the British aircraft manufacturer began designing a new generation of luxury flying boats, including a plane large enough to carry a hundred passengers and crew over 5,000 miles at the amazing speed of 360 mph.  Naturally, since 1943 was in the middle of the war, the company had to wait a few years to actually build this marvel, but the SR.45 Princess, was finally built after the war, taking flight in 1951.  Unfortunately, that was also the first year for a jet-powered transport plane, the de Havilland Comet, to become operational.  Though the Princess was built and actually flew, no airlines were interested in trying to turn back the aviation clock, preferring to buy jet aircraft instead of flying boats.  After years in storage, the Princess was scrapped.  There are still seaplanes, but the days of grand flying boats ae over.

Today, none of those grand old flying boats remain and traveling on airlines today has all the class and comfort of spending the weekend in the county jail.  If the war had never occurred, perhaps we would still be flying on luxurious seaplanes, enjoying fine meals in spacious dining rooms.  This is all something to think about the next time you are crammed into a small seat designed for children, hoping to score a miniature bag of peanuts from an overworked flight attendant.