why was seaplane speed record nearly 100mph faster than land based?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-1_Racer#Operational_history

I would've thought it would be 100+mph in the other direction, given the huge floats didn't retract and take off and landing on water has its own host of issues.

 

Totally different planes. The Italian plane's power plant generated 2850 HP, the H1 only 1000HP. The design of the plane is why it went as fast as it did.

 

You don't get my question.

Why wouldn't someone use similar tech for land-based?

If anything you'd think landbased would attract more interest and money.

I'd have ranked floatplanes behind wheeled and ski landing gear for speed.

 

You might also like to look at this page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_S.6B

a plane I have seen. Built, IIRC on the site later used by Green Marine on the Itchen

I also recall that the main problem with flying fast from a land airstrip was that none were long/smooth enough until WW2. And that everyone believed that the transatlantic flights would always by in seaplanes as who would be crazy enough to build huge airports on land?

The seaplane hangers at Calshot are now used by dinghies (as they are in Plymouth) as the doors are high enough to take them in fully rigged.

The seaplane pier in Southampton is used by the local sailing club, or at any rate I have used it in years gone by

Richard Woods

 

I'm guessing the output of the engine was responsible. 2850 hp was a helluva power plant for the time. The Italians were, and still are, technically very able at producing a lot of power from a relatively light engine.

 

You haven't driven a Fiat.

 

You didn't like the Bambino ?

 

sorta, but I see all sorts of fairly large planes on hard runways in the early 1930s in every city in the USA. http://www.wingsoverkansas.com/vintage/a195/ I gotta think that even if a "racer" has higher takeoff/landing speed than a Ford Trimotor, its gonna be able to reach that speed a lot quicker, as well as take greater risks landing with only a single dare-devil's life at risk.

 

I keep trying to give them a chance, cause I like small cars.
They finally convince me to get rid of them.
And I keep cars a long time.

 

Besides that, if flying over large bodies of water, if something went wrong you could land the plane. Way back when most Coast Guard aircraft were sea planes because they could land on the water. Why were they faster, Horsepower. it took a lot of power to take off on the water.

 

Take a look at the M.C. 72, designed in 1931.
No flaps.
No pitch control on the props (contra-rotating no less!)
Very thin, wire braced airfoil.

Result, very high landing speed and poor acceleration for take-off.

The Hughes racer (1935) had flaps, which allowed for a speed optimized airfoil while maintaining decent landing speeds and which also had a variable pitch prop.

 

The question is valid given the real data of aircraft speeds of the time. However if you look at the specifics, its looking at apples and oranges. All the high speeds made by floatplanes were done in the context of the Schneider Cup races and were done in government sponsored and funded projects. The planes were extremely temperamental and most could not be depended on to actually complete the race courses and only a small minority ever succeeded in doing so.

Land plane speed records were mostly done by individuals or small groups without access to the money or engine technology of Supermarine or Machetti. One exception was the Howard Hughes Racer that set a land speed record and introduced some new technology. The US military was so hide bound and backward looking that they had no interest in a sleek monoplane like the H1 and favored their wire strung and strutted biplanes. The US aviation industry was not a player.

The US was a isolationist nation while Europe was competing among several nearby nations on many fronts, soon to fight a war. Italians and Germans were particularly gearing up and fast aircraft gained a priority with the Schneider Cup as a major measuring stick. A few in the US such as Mitchell and Curtiss, were involved but not serious challengers to the Europeans.

Given enough power and a decent airframe with good controls, the limiting factor has been and will remain the propellers technology. Therefore the top speeds have been nearly the same for about 85 years. A major limit there is the speed of sound at the tip of a prop so some advances have been made in how to cheat that with curved prop blades much like swept wings in supersonic aircraft..

 

I found this interesting. The Spitfire was developed as a floatplane post armistice to quietly develop British airpower. http://www.tailsthroughtime.com/2011/01/spitfire-floatplane-that-reginald.html

"...hearkened back to its roots as one of Reginald Mitchell's inspired Schneider Cup racing floatplanes."*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._J._Mitchell

 

The skin of floats did double duty as radiators which addressed cooling drag, significant in a racer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_S.6

 

I thought the radiators were all those ridges along the fuselage. Now I'm wondering what those were all about.