Silly idea. Flying boat very light jet plane

[CamoDeafie]

I've been toying with a silly idea in my head and sketching it out.. but... I want opinions lol.

Okay so Heinkel 162 Salamander/Volksjager.. its got a single jet engine dorsally mounted, pretty sleek lines, just about 30 feet long; relatively lightweight...

Idea. Instead of it being only a land based aircraft...

Why not a light amphibian?
The fuselage could be shaped like one of those rather big floats used on the twin engined bush planes.. engine could be a turbofan taken from something like the Very Light Jet category small business jets, maybe a Garrett, maybe a PW series?
Make it a two seater? Or keep it single seat, and make it a Very Light Jet/LSA?

How bad of an idea is this? Lol

Probably best to build a scale model of it, or a CGI model but I aint got materials or computer software for it. @Ura-Ki , thoughts?

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[Mike_M57]

I know little to nothing about airplanes, especially those that land on water. That being said, my very first thought is. "Will it fly slow enough to safely land on water, or will it skip across the surface like a flat stone?"

 

[CamoDeafie]

I know little to nothing about airplanes, especially those that land on water. That being said, my very first thought is. "Will it fly slow enough to safely land on water, or will it skip across the surface like a flat stone?"

Landing speed is quoted somewhere to be 154 kph. The Beriev Be-200 jet flying boat has a landing speed of 185 kph.

 

[ATCclears]

@CamoDeafie what is the mission relative to water? That is a high speed requiring a large(r) body of water.

How often would said bodies of water be calm enough on the surface?

 

[CamoDeafie]

@CamoDeafie what is the mission relative to water? That is a high speed requiring a large(r) body of water.

How often would said bodies of water be calm enough on the surface?

Silly idea, no practical mission other than "can it be done?" Could change out wings for a higher lift, slower takeoff/landing... could try what hasn't been successfully tried; retractable hydrofoils? Boeing has done some research related to boats, and I think a couple companies have tried with flying boats but these were long ago and not applied to jet powered or small fuselages.

Edit. Depending on how the wing is setup along with maybe hydrofoils, I think it won't take that much calm water to take off or land... I mean, it won't be larger than the hydroplane race boats with turbines on them and @Ura-Ki knows what I'm talking about

Edit 2. @ATCclears . Cessna 172 landing speed is 61 knots/ 112something km/hr. In knots, 154km/hr is about 81 knots. Really surprisingly close speeds considering the vastly different wings and powerplants.

 

[WAW44]

I've been toying with a silly idea in my head and sketching it out.. but... I want opinions lol.

Okay so Heinkel 162 Salamander/Volksjager.. its got a single jet engine dorsally mounted, pretty sleek lines, just about 30 feet long; relatively lightweight...

Idea. Instead of it being only a land based aircraft...

Why not a light amphibian?
The fuselage could be shaped like one of those rather big floats used on the twin engined bush planes.. engine could be a turbofan taken from something like the Very Light Jet category small business jets, maybe a Garrett, maybe a PW series?
Make it a two seater? Or keep it single seat, and make it a Very Light Jet/LSA? View attachment 875282

How bad of an idea is this? Lol

Probably best to build a scale model of it, or a CGI model but I aint got materials or computer software for it. @Ura-Ki , thoughts?

So an amphib Vision Jet or Epic Victory or Flaris Lar1?

And yes, silly idea. Anything can be done, but with current technology it would have short legs, minimal useful load, would burn lots of fuel and probably won't be able to get into many places both because of performance and because of noise. Aircraft design is an art of compromise and jets don't like low and slow.

 

[CamoDeafie]

So an amphib Vision Jet or Epic Victory or Flaris Lar1?

And yes, silly idea. Anything can be done, but with current technology it would have short legs, minimal useful load, would burn lots of fuel and probably won't be able to get into many places both because of performance and because of noise. Aircraft design is an art of compromise and jets don't like low and slow.

Sort of but keeping much closer to the original HE162 wing form and cockpit versus the VLJ bizjets. The small turbofan engines on those are what gives this idea a bit more... traction than the original thirsty pure jet BMW003s that gave it a range of only 606 miles maximum .

 

[Bob D]

Yo! A topic on which I can speak! I am an engineer in the aerospace industry and have worked on projects for all sorts of airframes. The short, unexciting answer is that it would be incredibly difficult if possible at all.

The overall problem is that modifying an aircraft that was not designed for flotation from the ground up is quite difficult. Even assuming that the materials and construction can hold up to higher external pressures, Bouyancy and balance tolerances are quite different on water. For instance, this airframe has almost all the weight centered on the fuselage with the engine giving it a very high center of mass. To keep that stable on water would require a very wide set of pontoons, and they would have to have quite a large volume to offset the narrow mass of the fuselage and engine. Hydrofoils only work while moving, so they would not do the job here. Those pontoons would create a heck of a lot of drag as well, requiring either more power or larger wing surface area. More power would make the landing speed an even larger consideration. Larger wings would certainly require a complete re-build of the fuselage structure, since they are built to take very specific compound loads, and can't usually handle bolting things on like you would an old steel frame truck.

By the time you turned this into something that can perform a water landing, there won't be much of it left other than the engine.

Sorry to be a downer.

 

[Bob D]

But here's this cool thing:

 

[mrblond]

I've been toying with a silly idea in my head and sketching it out.. but... I want opinions lol.

Okay so Heinkel 162 Salamander/Volksjager.. its got a single jet engine dorsally mounted, pretty sleek lines, just about 30 feet long; relatively lightweight...

Idea. Instead of it being only a land based aircraft...

Why not a light amphibian?
The fuselage could be shaped like one of those rather big floats used on the twin engined bush planes.. engine could be a turbofan taken from something like the Very Light Jet category small business jets, maybe a Garrett, maybe a PW series?
Make it a two seater? Or keep it single seat, and make it a Very Light Jet/LSA? View attachment 875282

How bad of an idea is this? Lol

Probably best to build a scale model of it, or a CGI model but I aint got materials or computer software for it. @Ura-Ki , thoughts?

thought that drawing looked familiar

 

[Ura-Ki]

Why a Jet?
Propellers are WAY better for making thrust, and better yet, aiding the wings in making lift! Using the traditional Cloth and Tube construction, you can keep things nice and light while being very strong! My ideal would be a high wing mounting twin turbo props with handed propellers which would give the highest possible payload in the smallest airframe/wing configuration, and thus, require less footprint in the floats, which means less drag! Floats are horribly unaerodynamic as it is, so, no matter what you end up building, that's always going to really hurt performance!
Have a look at the Helio line up of aircraft, specifically the Twin Courier, those guys were way ahead of the curve!

Put some Wipelines or EDO's on this bad boy and go to work!

 

[CamoDeafie]

Because every amphibian that's not Russian and not from the 1940s-50s have propellors

And counterpoint.. there's the Lake Buccaneer.

Beside... I can't help but think the way the He 162 is setup.... it could lend itself to the amphib/seaplane/tiny flying boat idea...

@Bob D; I'm not talking just adding pontoons. I'm talking about shaping the fuselage into a flying boat form. May have to just take the hull from a Lake Buccaneer and rewing it and give it a dorsal turbofan engine and twin fin tail? Quick pen sketch of what I'm visualizing.

 

[CamoDeafie]

Another sketch, this time using the photo referenced by @mrblond ; @Bob D and @Ura-Ki , gotta tell you... it sure does look possible doesn't it? I mean.. shape the fuselage into the biggest single float possible, and add tip floats, adjust rear fins? No guns though. Maybe keep the same tricycle undercarriage. Maybe retractable hydrofoils with flying boat body, the Russians and British i think experimented with hydrofoil borne seaplanes? I know Convair did the hydroskis on the XF2Y Sea Darts.

 

[CamoDeafie]

Actually, these planes might get us much closer to the idea, swap.engine for a small micro turbofan engine, give it twin tail fins or keep V tail; give it the small but broad wings like the HE162 from the top; or use F-5E style wings for the zippier look

 

[Ura-Ki]

Only issue with the above designs is Jet wash and flight controls don't mix! Besides the incredible heat, the thrust would basically pin the flight controls solid, effectively making them useless, which is why the He 162 had the turbine mounted where it is, and the tail outside the thrust cone! BTW, that little Jet was a nightmare to fly, it had serious adverse control coupling and the thrust centerline caused all sorts of pitch problems and it was constantly trying to pitch the nose down! Look real close at the engine eflux tube, they tried to change the shape to move the thrust centerline to the airframes center line, it sort of worked, but was never a solution!

 

[CamoDeafie]

Only issue with the above designs is Jet wash and flight controls don't mix! Besides the incredible heat, the thrust would basically pin the flight controls solid, effectively making them useless, which is why the He 162 had the turbine mounted where it is, and the tail outside the thrust cone! BTW, that little Jet was a nightmare to fly, it had serious adverse control coupling and the thrust centerline caused all sorts of pitch problems and it was constantly trying to pitch the nose down! Look real close at the engine eflux tube, they tried to change the shape to move the thrust centerline to the airframes center line, it sort of worked, but was never a solution!

Thats why I said put twin tails on them, or figure the V tail, and why I went with the turbofan idea vs the pure jet of the HE162. A small jet with a bigarse ducted front or rear fan for incredibly high bypass flow system could do a lot to ameliorate the heat issues? Otherwise, yeah it would end up being more like the micro Bizjets like the Vision Jet with an S shaped duct and exhaust on the very end... which is getting further away from the original idea. What's your cititation for the plane being a flawed design? I could only find references to the wings and the dutch roll problem which was an issue with many jet designs after WW2... but the reports by test pilots says it had favorable flying feel, being "a delight to fly" although light controls made it more suitable for experienced pilots versus youth. Says all the problems were a result of the extremely short development time from paper to flying to production; and not any inherent design flaw? FWIW, the beloved A-10 Warthog doesn't have the thrust centerline aligned with the fuselage centerline.. although it being a twin engine design built around a cannon might make things a bit different @Bob D , your thoughts?

 

[Bob D]

First of all, I love this. Great vision and sketching! I see where you're going with this now. It does look very possible! Moving the engine further forward will really help. And keeping the fuselage small and light but still shaped in that classic single hull seaplane way would work, all the structural and balance analysis required of course. Would need pontoons as well, but if you make it bottom heavy in the fuselage they won't need as much.

 

[Bob D]

Still a long shot, but so is dropping a 454 into an integra! Great fun though

 

[WAW44]

What's your cititation for the plane being a flawed design? I could only find references to the wings and the dutch roll problem which was an issue with many jet designs after WW2... but the reports by test pilots says it had favorable flying feel, being "a delight to fly" although light controls made it more suitable for experienced pilots versus youth. Says all the problems were a result of the extremely short development time from paper to flying to production; and not any inherent design flaw?

Eric Brown liked it, but said it was not for the novice pilots. There are few original source reports here: http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/

 

[Ura-Ki]

Thats why I said put twin tails on them, or figure the V tail, and why I went with the turbofan idea vs the pure jet of the HE162. A small jet with a bigarse ducted front or rear fan for incredibly high bypass flow system could do a lot to ameliorate the heat issues? Otherwise, yeah it would end up being more like the micro Bizjets like the Vision Jet with an S shaped duct and exhaust on the very end... which is getting further away from the original idea. What's your cititation for the plane being a flawed design? I could only find references to the wings and the dutch roll problem which was an issue with many jet designs after WW2... but the reports by test pilots says it had favorable flying feel, being "a delight to fly" although light controls made it more suitable for experienced pilots versus youth. Says all the problems were a result of the extremely short development time from paper to flying to production; and not any inherent design flaw? FWIW, the beloved A-10 Warthog doesn't have the thrust centerline aligned with the fuselage centerline.. although it being a twin engine design built around a cannon might make things a bit different @Bob D , your thoughts?

I'm going by several sources, the main one being the Janes encyclopedia of WW-II aircraft! There is an entire chapter on this airframe and all it's good and bad points! It's a pretty fair and accurate read ( Mostly) as I have found!
Couple of highlights, during the early jet developments, there was a profound misunderstanding of wing placement and control surfaces relative to the fuselage, ( as compared to propeller driven aircraft) with various designs being completely un flyable, or there being serious issues, most centered around where the tail control surfaces were located and how they were set in relation to the wings! Basically, too high and the main wings would occlude the tail feathers and would cause all sorts of handling issues, especially in the pitch moment, too low a mounting, and they would have wing turbulence, some times they could get away with it, more often it was fatal, ( See F-100 Saber Dance) and more often then not, adverse control coupling, which basically makes one flight control act out of sinc with what it's supposed to do, usually Rudder and Elevator mixing or Rudder and Aileron mixing! Some Jets could barrel roll with just the rudder, and then the elevator would flutter and cause all sorts of issues! It was really a head scratcher for even the top designers and engineers! But, because of what those guys learned, we got a bunch of really stellar performing jets in a pretty short span of time! Probably the top performers would be the Navy's F8 Crusader and the Air Forces F-104, though the indominable F-4 was an absolute world beater of a jet, and very typically, American!

As to your idea, look at the new Icon anphfib, this little bugger answers many of your questions and has proven it's self a good design ( though it killed a few pilots early on) it seems well sorted now!

I would still go Turbo Prop and forget the turbo fan idea, or maybe a pair of small high bypass fans mounted on the wings if you just have to have pure jet thrust! Rotax power SUKZ big time, ask me how I know! lol