It didn’t have the ability to land on a runway, but it did have small wheels to move up onto a ramp for deployment or retrieval. Replacing the wheels were hydroskins, that deployed when the aircraft was up to speed on the water surface, and then retracted to allow supersonic speeds. Starting with the delta dagger, the engineers believed that this new seaborn craft would need to retain the same delta wing shape, triangle cockpit and triangle tail. Thus with the greenlight, the convair Sea Dart was born The navy was equally impressed, and placed firm orders for no fewer than 22 of the planes, including two “experimental” versions, four “service test” aircraft and sixteen production aircraft, or, roughly, enough for a squadron. It would have to be water tight, and the arnmate would be limited, but it would do its job fine intercepting soviet bombers over the atalantic and pacfic. Thus engineers at Convair got to work on a radically new aircraft design to fill the navy requirements.Ĭonvair’s Ernest Stout and his team at hydrodynamic research laboratory thought - what if they could simply take the under development Delta Dagger and put it on water skis - theoretically it could work. This hypothetical new jet would have to take off and land from the ocean itself - a supersonic seaplane Thus the navy was in a situation where it was being outgunned by the airforce,Īnd they needed their own supersonic interceptor program - one that didn’t need an aircraft carrier. The Navy was still regulated to non-sweeped, slow aircraft, and their performance in the early korean war left a lot to be desired. You see, back then supersonic aircraft required long runways to take off, high speed approaches when landing, and were typically unstable - the perfect opposite for landing on aircraft carriers. Planes were getting bigger, flying further and, and most importantly, breaking the sound barrier. In 1948, jet aircraft technology was taking off at an accelerated pace. This is the US navy story of what could have been The US dubbed it the supersonic seaplane and it would usher in a new age of navy defense.īut this would never come to pass and the plane would have a tragic future. In the early 50s, an impossible new aircraft took to the sky.Ī interceptor like no other that could be deployed from submarines, take off from the sea itself and go - supersonic. Join this channel to get access to perks: The first 100 people to download Endel at the link below will get a free week of audio experiences!
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