A seaplane is a fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water. Seaplanes can be divided into separate categories such as floatplanes, flying boats, and amphibians. These aircraft are occasionally called hydroplanes, a term rarely used in English.

Types

The word "seaplane" is used to describe two types of air/water vehicles: the floatplane and the flying boat.

• A floatplane has slender pontoons mounted under the fuselage. Two floats are common, but many floatplanes of World War II had a single float under the main fuselage and two small floats on the wings. Only the "floats" of a floatplane normally come into contact with water. The fuselage remains above water. Some small land aircraft can be modified to become float planes.
• In a flying boat, the main source of buoyancy is the fuselage, which acts like a ship's hull in the water. Most flying boats have small floats mounted on their wings to keep them stable.

The term "seaplane" is used by some to refer only to floatplanes (aircraft with floats as landing gear), with the flying boat being a distinct type of craft. This article treats both flying boats and floatplanes as types of seaplane.

An amphibious aircraft can take off and land both on conventional runways and water. A true seaplane can only take off and land on water. There are amphibious flying boats and amphibious floatplanes, as well as some hybrid designs, e.g., floatplanes with retractable floats. Modern production seaplanes are largely amphibious and of a floatplane design.

History

The first manned and controlled (though unpowered) seaplane flight was established by French aircraft designer, builder and pilot Gabriel Voisin on June 1905, on river Seine (Paris); it was a towed flight, at 15 to 20 m altitude (50 to 66 ft), and 600 meters (2000 ft) long. The aircraft was a biplane configuration with an aft tail and a front elevator, supported at rest by 2 planing floats (catamaran).

The first autonomous flight by a seaplane was done by the French engineer Henri Fabre in March 1910. Its name was Le Canard ('the duck'), and took off from the water and flew 800 meters on its first flight on March 28 1910. These experiments were closely followed by the aircraft pioneers Gabriel and Charles Voisin, who purchased several of the Fabre floats and fitted them to their Canard Voisin airplane. In October 1910, the Canard Voisin became the first seaplane to fly over the river Seine, and in March 1912, the first seaplane to be used militarily from a seaplane carrier, La Foudre ('the lightning').