A Grumman Duck beaches itself:
The Ducks were made at the Grumman plant on Long island, NY. They would do their tests for sea states and such in the ocean. When they were done, they'd fly up to Candlewood Lake in CT and do a series of full-stop landings in order to wash as much of the salt off as possible.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
That is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. From your description, I was expecting to see the main pontoon just smooshed into sand like beaching a boat. When it came up the concrete boat ramp with the landing gear was a surprise.
I take it the trick is to not get ahead of yourself, to not put the wheels down until after the landing splashdown has slowed to an amble....
That's a JF-2 Duck! Fantastic SAR bird in WWII, they were used off small Jeep carriers as a SAR asset more than off BBs. The Kingfishers didn't have a retractable gear, and were primary for the BBs as they could be hoisted back aboard.
Putting the wheels down before landing on water is A Very Bad Thing.
Post a Comment