Flying Boat Design and Engineering

[Adventureguy]

I am interested in studying the design and engineering of flying boats, to understand, before building, if any of the ideas I have about flying boats or other* seaplanes will work. The posts here suggest that you have a lot of engineering information that has been too uninteresting to most to post but might be very useful to a few of us, detailed blueprint hull profiles, for example. In exchange, perhaps I and "any others out there listening" with the right interest and skills can generate some information of more-general interest, perhaps even a new flying boat.

* Obviously a colonial

I know what some of you are thinking, but don't worry. I won't try to build my flying boat out of light electrical conduit. Someone actually did design and build a land plane framed entirely with conduit and flew the plane to an air show, where my father and the other kind pilots and mechanics insistently offered him and the plane a ride home in something else. Actually, I have aerospace and mechanical engineering degrees and experience with welding, composite layups, mold building, electric wiring, engine overhauls, electronics, and so on. Alas, I am not a billionaire--otherwise I would have already posted photos of a two-seat, two-engine, mini-S.66, my first thought...

Hull design and matching the hull with the wing design are the "missing pieces" of designing a flying boat with modern aeronautical knowledge, materials, and tools. With such, a light wing can have great span and strength and aerodynamic efficiency, but the hull must also be efficient and the two well-matched to make the most of such a wing.

[schneiderman]

I would recommend a couple of books published in the 1930s which you should be able to track down on one of the online secondhand book dealers

Seaplane Float and Hull Design by Marcus Langley
Marine Aircraft Design by William Munro

Also there are numerous NACA and some ARC publications available on

https://reports.aerade.cranfield.ac.uk/

Happy hunting!

[Adventureguy]

Thanks, Schneiderman. That is very helpful.