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Post by Andy Wright on Mar 20, 2011 21:07:26 GMT 12
Man, I'd love to have one of those to trundle around the dam on.
Sigh.
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Post by haughtney1 on Mar 24, 2011 4:54:50 GMT 12
I've finally had the time and inclination to go through this thread and look at all the great pics on here. Outstanding, really stirs the historical juices in me...I cant quite imagine how tough flying those flying boats was, I'm lucky I guess, sat up at FL350 doing mach .84 and all I really stress about crossing the tasman these days is if the crew know how to make a decent latte'
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Post by lumpy on Mar 25, 2011 20:38:36 GMT 12
Just got back from a school camp , where the "legend " has it that the lovingly restored boat , tied up to the jetty was once a flying boat " tender " , once powered by a "Spitfire engine ".
Flying boat tender is very plausable , its not a huge boat , but as I understand it , Merlins are hard to put into boats , as the air intake for the supercharger is on the bottom , as opposed to the Allison , which is above ?
Possibly a bit off topic , but did they really use such outragously overpowered boats as tenders ? ( obviously the " Spitfire " engine comment will more likely refere to any " Merlin " , maybe a P51 or Mossie - or even an Allison from a P40 ? Just wondering ?
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 25, 2011 21:18:15 GMT 12
Could it be a Rolls Royce Meteor engine, the version of the Merlin that was built for tanks and sometimes used in military boats I believe.
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Post by shorty on Mar 25, 2011 21:31:14 GMT 12
One (or more) of the Air sea rescue launches was fitted with a marine Napier Lion engine, I think the engine may have ended up at MOTAT (so lord knows where it is now) To the common Joe in the street any aircraft engine is a "Spitfire" engine. I think one of the launches was based at Wellington but without doing a bit of searching I can't tell you for sure.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 25, 2011 21:46:33 GMT 12
That Napier Lion engine was fitted to the very first RNZAF boat, from the 1930's. It was at Omaka in 2009 for the airshow as I helped shift it from a hangar to where it was being displayed in the large hangar. there's a thread here on the forum somewhere about the engine I think, or it may be on the FlyPast forum. it is certainly not operably, in fact quite knackered is how I'd describe it. There were indeed two i think, and from memory the owner of one of them was on this forum and may have been restoring it.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 25, 2011 21:47:57 GMT 12
The late Richard Shuttleworth brought back an Allison engine from the islands and fitted it to a boat too. he had a collection of engines including a very rare Napier Sabre, and I believe he was involved in the GP boat racing scene postwar.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Mar 26, 2011 0:32:16 GMT 12
The late Len Southward's speedboat “Redhead” was powered by either a Rolls-Royce Merlin or an Allison V-1720, but I cannot remember which. The boat is on display in the Southward Car Museum at Paraparaumu.
The thread I posted containing a large number of photographs of TEAL's Short Solent operations on Evans Bay, Wellington contains a photo of Len Southward in Redhead racing ZK-AMM Ararangi across the water during its takeoff run.
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Post by John L on Mar 30, 2011 17:54:38 GMT 12
An Allison V-1720. - ex P40, wasn't it?
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Post by pjw4118 on May 26, 2011 11:16:52 GMT 12
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jan 24, 2013 23:12:05 GMT 12
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Post by ngatimozart on Jan 26, 2013 18:23:07 GMT 12
Nice photo.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jan 27, 2013 22:37:48 GMT 12
I'll let you in on a little secret....that Sikorsky S.42 isn't taking off at Auckland. It is actually taking off from Miami, but it is such a classic photograph of a classic aeroplane type (one of which did visit Auckland twice in 1937 and almost made it here on a third occasion) that I thought I'd post it to this thread.
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canso42
Leading Aircraftman
Posts: 5
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Post by canso42 on Feb 4, 2013 4:36:23 GMT 12
Great stuff guys! As you may guess from my username, I'm a fan of flying boats. My dad was a Catalina veteran and he taught me to love warbirds and vintage av. I like the big boats but older and smaller are cool too. I like the colorizing work-it looks like vintage postcards. I don't know if PanAms big Martin boats ever visited NZ, but does anyone here have any pix of them? Start a slightly differnt thread perhaps?
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Post by roadking97 on Feb 4, 2013 10:34:50 GMT 12
Iam building big seaplanes of the past and have fun flying them. Attachments:
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Post by roadking97 on Feb 4, 2013 10:38:07 GMT 12
Its a short solent with a 100 inch wingspan with electrict motors I built it from Ivans plans. joe Attachments:
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Post by thebrads on Feb 4, 2013 12:31:33 GMT 12
Nice Roadking! I've got a 3.5m Sunderland stored i need to get working on, and recently came into possession of a 1.8m Catalina that will likely fly in a year or so.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 4, 2013 16:41:01 GMT 12
Awesome model Roadking, welcome to the forum!
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Post by roadking97 on Feb 5, 2013 3:21:57 GMT 12
Thanks guys i have a thing for older seaplanes before every country had runways. I think it was the begining of transporting people that most over look. joe
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Post by roadking97 on Feb 6, 2013 5:47:11 GMT 12
Nice Roadking! I've got a 3.5m Sunderland stored i need to get working on, and recently came into possession of a 1.8m Catalina that will likely fly in a year or so. I have some online friends building Sunderlands but for some reason i have never wanted to build a Catalina. I think its because they have some still flying here . I have plans for a 84 inch albatross And for something realy different plans for a PL-12 airtruk. lol joe
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