Floating wings?

[moon puppy]

Stumbled on this on Youtube. Never hears or read that the Navy had inflatable floats in the wings of it's pre WW2 aircraft. Don't know if they were manually deployed or some how automatic. There's a F3F at the end that has them deployed when doing a trap landing, guess they deployed in flight some how.

 

[RichB]

The idea of emergency flotation devices was explored during WWI by the RFC/RNAS. Below is a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter with a float system installed, inflated on top and stowed below.

Between the wars, sealed flotation chambers were built into the structure of some aircraft. The advantage with this method was no requirement for compressed gas canisters.

The flotation bags were designed to inflate on impact with the water. When they worked correctly they could save aircrew and in some cases the aircraft. Unfortunately they had a nasty habit of inflating in flight which killed the lift of the wings. Several aircraft were lost to this and the system was removed.

Cheers,
RichB

 

[moon puppy]

Between the wars, sealed flotation chambers were built into the structure of some aircraft.

I do remember reading about this some where along the way but never the floats.

Thanks Rich.