The Weight of Seaplane Floats

Extract

Although floatplanes were not popular during the war years, new types have made their appearance since, and presumably, for certain classes of work, more will be seen in the future. With this in mind, this paper is presented in the hope that it may help in assessing the float weights on any new designs that are contemplated. Some suggestions are included concerning geometry and design which, if adopted, may help to show a higher weight efficiency than existing practice.

The paper is based upon an analysis of the weight and geometrical data relating to a large number of floats, although since the number built during recent years is small, a certain amount of data, which might possibly be considered old by some standards, has been incorporated. As will be seen by the curves, recent practice shows no radical departure from earlier years and the inclusion of the early data to establish design trends would appear to be warranted.