amphib 2 seat aircraft that lands on hydrofoils, not hull or floats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISA_Akoya

I always thought the SeaDart was on to something with its 'ski' landing gear mounted on shocks. The ski(s) wouldn't take the full slam of a wave like hull or float, so the 'envelope' for landing would grow.

But I like this little French job's foils even better, and seems to make even more sense.

Totally separate landing wheels. I would've gotten stuck trying to use the same structural members to do both, but since the foils and wheels absorb energy from different surfaces in different ways I can see why it made sense to totally separate them.

I wonder how this does up on foils at "high speed taxi" on surface of water, and I'm wondering about a boat using same 'whisker' foils and some stub wings or 'lifting body' that would be a hydrofoil that reduces load on foils at higher speeds.

 

I enjoyed checking out the differences

 

So did i and thanks for bringing it up Squidly Diddly

 

thx for the links, I didn't know about the snow (and heavy tall grass???) skiis on the wheeled landing gear.

about 1:15 into top video

 

that is a brilliant design, traditional flying boat design has a big draggy step that seriously harms flight performance, but was considered necessary to get the hull up "on step" so it could rotate for take off. this foil system solves that problem with no moving parts!

 

the Sea Dart is the only supersonic sea plane ever built. too bad the navy did not buy a fleet of them, I guess they saw no useful utility. Most navy planes can not land in the water anyway.