PC/WI: Boeing Clippers & Short Sunderland's used instead of C-46/47's

WILDGEESE

Gone Fishin'
After just watching a tv show about "flying boats" in WWII and seeing how big their fuselage's where.

What if instead of building C-46/47 and Avro York transports for the USAAF and RAF, both Boeing and Short's built land based versions (wheeled instead of boat hull) of their "Clipper" and "Sunderland" Flying Boats?

Would they be able to out perform C-46/47 transports in regards to cargo and troop carrying capacity?

Would they be any better at "Market Garden", as due to the limited capacity and number of transports, some parachute drops had to happen over a couple of days or so, thus leaving the Germans to either over run the drop zones or stiffle the paratroopers who landed.

Regards filers
 
After just watching a tv show about "flying boats" in WWII and seeing how big their fuselage's where.

What if instead of building C-46/47 and Avro York transports for the USAAF and RAF, both Boeing and Short's built land based versions (wheeled instead of boat hull) of their "Clipper" and "Sunderland" Flying Boats?

Would they be able to out perform C-46/47 transports in regards to cargo and troop carrying capacity?

Would they be any better at "Market Garden", as due to the limited capacity and number of transports, some parachute drops had to happen over a couple of days or so, thus leaving the Germans to either over run the drop zones or stiffle the paratroopers who landed.

Regards filers
AFAIK the transport version of the Stirling was effectively the landplane transport version of the Sunderland.

Thought the Short G-class was the British equivalent to the Boeing Clipper, both having been built for the Anglo-American joint transatlantic air service. The G-class was larger than the standard Empire Flying Boat and IIRC carried twice as many passengers and had 4 Hercules engines. IIRC the EFBs had to use in-flight-refuelling to cross the North Atlantic and the G-class did not.

At the outbreak of WWII Fairey was building the FC-1 airliner and Short Brothers the S.32, which AFAIK would have been the British equivalents to the DC-4 and Lockheed Constellations. AFAIK the S.32 was also the landplane version of the Short Golden Hind.
 
The Clipper used the Wing of the XB-15 Bomber, that was converted to a Cargo Plane, with the designation XC-105. Did many cargo runs to Central America during the War.
779px-B-15_bomber_%2800910460_132%29.jpg

per the wiki, During its 18 months of transport service, the XC-105 carried more than 5,200 passengers, 440,000 lb (200,000 kg) of cargo and 94,000 lb (43,000 kg) of mail

No reason more couldn't have been built, even though underpowered and slow, though more likely the improved Y1B-20 would have been selected for more production, than as OTL cancelled in 1938
 
The Douglass aircraft was relatively cheap and easy to build in bulk. More efficient in operating cost in terms of labor hours. There are some trade offs in it vs the others.
 
Are there enough sheltered waters suitable for Flying boats with good transport connections. I cant think of too many on the South and East Coast between the Solent and the Wash.

Loading Paras from a boat is going to be fun.
 
Also, one of the main problems and causes of hull losses was damage caused by floating debris. Hit a chunk of wood or a barrel at speed and you have a big hole in the bottom of your hull which then starts to fill up. Aerodynamically they are also less efficient than conventional aircraft meaning they are slower and draggier.
 
Hulls are heavy.Flying boats tend to have empty weights twice that of land-planes hauling the same payload.
IOW a seaplane with have a gross weight 150 percent of a land plane hauling the same payload.
Shorts Stirling was basically a flying boat with a shallower hull.

Late in the war, Stirlings were deemed obsolete by Bomber Comand and were pressed into service hauling troops, para-troopers and towing gliders.
Earlier development of LAPES would have vastly improved the lot of British paratroopers defending Arnhem Bridge, supplying sufficient anti-tank guns and ammo.
 
While some seaplanes can be amphibians and land on a runway with wheels, this is usually done with smaller aircraft. When amphibs land on a runway they need to be half decent, even paved or at least solid coral.The C-46, C-47 have much better rough field capability. Seaplane were popular because for the trans-oceanic routes, you could land at your destination with a minimum of infrastructure - to land aircraft of that size/range you needed long paved or very well maintained runways which, unlike water, cost a good bit to build and maintain. This was particularly important on the trans-Pacific routes where various small islands were used as stop-over and refueling points where building a long runway was both expensive and impractical as there were a limited number of flights.

After WWII when there was a network of larger airfields was readily available, and experience with long range bombers made the more efficient land planes the winners rather quickly. Planes that land on water remain a niche item.
 
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