Give em enough time and money . . .

So this time I just have to get into the 20th century and find a machine worthy of my scrutiny. There are many worthy contenders, but I'm going to start working on the pile with this magnificent machine, the Convair F2Y Sea Dart.

The idea was a seaplane / fighter aircraft hybrid. Not a bad concept, but this thing flew supersonic, and remains the only seaplane to exceed the speed of sound. I live on the coast and have flown in and seen many seaplanes. It is truly unbelievable that this plane flew and was somehow quite safe given the conditions seaplane fly under.

It actually sat in the water, the fuselage acting as a boat, with the wingtips touching the surface. There were two retractable skis that popped out once the plane was moving. The jet engine air intakes were thoughtfully mounted as far away from the water as possible.

Intitial tests were with low power engines and the plane never did much, although it did fly a bit. No one liked the tremendous shaking on takeoff and landing that the skis produced either. No matter what, it could not break the sound barrier with these engines. Once proper engines were fitted it went supersonic once, but fell apart during aerial demonstrations killing the test pilot.

The truly odd thing is that after such a crappy start the navy actually thought of carrying these things around in a submarine and launching them out of doors behind the conning tower.

And oh yeah, I forgot to mention, did you know that Goodyear made something called the XAO-3 Inflatoplane?