What happened to flying boats?
http://www.clipperflyingboats.com/
They're no longer needed. Their whole reason for existing was because back then, most airports were small, so the only way for large aircraft to be feasible was to use VTOL (which back then meant airships) or use the ocean as a runway. Longer runways were built all over during WWII to support heavy bombers, after the war they were used for commercial traffic. Not to mention that jet engines provided much faster acceleration, so it was possible to shorten the required runway length for aircraft of a given size.
>>962256
Dat guy spinning the #1 prop.
>>962258
>jet engines provided much faster acceleration
No. Jets had terrible initial acceleration, and are still quite inferior to props for STOL.
>>962258
>Not to mention that jet engines provided much faster acceleration, so it was possible to shorten the required runway length for aircraft of a given size.
Early jet engines had shit tier acceleration until ~500km/h. Early jets required much longer runways than propeller driven aircrafts.
>>962432
Early ones were limited in how fast they could change their thrust, but generally they produce far more thrust for takeoff than propeller engines do. And that means higher acceleration, and also a higher top speed (acceleration is proportional to thrust, top speed is proportional to the square root of thrust).
>>962447
Props deliver better power and efficiency at lower speeds though.
So for a flying boat, perfect.
Plus runways got longer with jets, not shorter.
Japan still makes turboprop seaplanes for their navy, and Russia makes a twin jet engine seaplane airliner
>>962447
>Early ones were limited in how fast they could change their thrust, but generally they produce far more thrust for takeoff than propeller engines do.
No, they didn't, and they still don't. Jets have comparitively good dynamic thrust in flight, but their static thrust isn't particularly notable. Propellers, on the other hand, can produce remarkable amounts of static thrust, but this thrust declines considerably with increasing airspeed.
Have an example: the B-52 and the Tu-95 are, by all measures, comparable and equivalent aircraft from the same era, but where the B-52 employs jets (EIGHT of them), the Tu-95 uses turboprops. A fully-loaded B-52 requires 10,000 feet of runway, but a TU-95 only needs half of that, because it propellers produce much more static thrust.
This is still the case as well, as evidenced by the continued use of turboprops in the tactical airlift role, where STOL performance is valued (A400M being the most recent example).
>>962464
B-52 takes forever to take off because it uses jets from the 1950s. Several times the Air Force has tested new hi bypass engines, like those used on modern airliners.Every time Congress won't give them funds to do it.
>>962479
>B-52 takes forever to take off because it uses jets from the 1950s.
High-bypass turbofans are better, but still not as good as props. It's really not that surprising, given that a turboprop is taking the same principle as high bypass ratio (reduce specific thrust; move more air at lower velocities for more efficient low-speed thrust production) to the extreme with enormous-diameter external blades.
Observe:
>Airbus A400M: 220,000 lbs, 3215 ft, turboprop engines
>Kawasaki C-2: 282,000 lbs, 7500 ft, high-bypass turbofans
>C-17: 585,000 lbs, 7600 ft, high-bypass turbofans
>AN-22: 551,000 lbs, 4300 ft, turboprops
>Piaggio Avanti: 11,500 lbs, 2900 ft, turboprops
>Cessna Citation M2: 10,700 lbs, 3250 ft, turbofans
![1024px-US-2_9903-2[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/pYvSOS5.jpg "1024px-US-2_9903-2[1].jpg")
If I ever hit it big. I am going to get a Shinmaywa US-2 as a private plane.
I can even pay for it by chartering it out to rich people wanting island or bush vacations. Imagine the luxury of a plane that operate from any airport or any bit a water long enough.
>>962256
They're pretty awesome, but I think the added maintenance caused my salt and water penetration made them too expensive to keep pursuing Vs traditional airplanes
>>962656
Personally....
>>962686
Yum!
>>962687
>>962256
They were around because transatlantic voyages typically couldn't be done in a single shot, and airports were still in their infancy, meaning stopover locations typically had no landing strips
They went away with the advent of bigger airports and long distance airliners capable of making a transatlantic flight in a single shot. That, and they're not particularly good at being a plane or a boat.
They are still useful in firefighting and SAR roles, though, and they are cool looking
