single-float plane, or flying boat? Re: twin-hull flying boat or float plane?

[ericr]

some time ago my attention was brought by our very excellent Tophe towards the astonishing Levasseur PL201 :
it has a quite unique structure : is it a twin-floats? or a twin hull flying boat? A quite typical occurrence of the French cultural exception.





It is anyway very tempting, although, by its shere existence, it can not anymore pretend to the quality of Whif.
This latter issue I solved by adopting a red livery, and by observing that in the absence of any known kit for it, I would go at it from bits and pieces in my spare parts boxes. So let it be considered a sports version, with smaller fuselage and bigger floats.

I actually had two Cams37 hulls, spare from the Azur kits for the E and Lai versions which still have the A hull on the sprues. Upon this I added wing parts from Curtiss Condor kits, and a bit of a fuselage from a NiD72, plus bits from forgotten origins ...

It started as quite an adventure, and it came out like this :

[Brian da Basher]

Very nice! The unique layout is complimented by the striking red scheme!

A real beauty!

Brian da Basher

[GTX_Admin]

Very nice.  And I wouldn't worry about the whiff/no whiff aspect - as has been mentioned many times before, that is not an issue here at BTS

[FAAMAN]

Beautiful, beautiful work, a superb build complimented by your excellent red finish, looks fast just sitting still !!!

[ericr]

thanx!

apparently that structure, twin-hull flying boat or twin float plane?, was used also for a few other planes, like a Dornier from 1931 : still it is quite an original concept!

[Dr. YoKai]

 What a nifty concept! Very nicely done, Eric - and I will be mining this for inspiration as well.

[Frank3k]

Very nice. I like the larger floats and the fuselage. It looks more realistic than the original plane!

[taiidantomcat]

Talk about inspiring! What a great layout! Thanks Tophe and Ericr. Red was the right choice on this one too!!

Filled my head with ideas Where is my razor saw? 

[ericr]

thanks all!

in between I discovered a few other instances indeed of that kind of fin-equipped floats, some related bythe horizontal stabilizer ... still, not many aircraft tried it, it remains a surprising structure.

[Tophe]

thanx!
apparently that structure, twin-hull flying boat or twin float plane?, was used also for a few other planes, like a Dornier from 1931 : still it is quite an original concept!

There were even Mustangs in this little family:

(at least: in my crazy mind...)

[GTX_Admin]

Sweet.

[ericr]

thanx!
apparently that structure, twin-hull flying boat or twin float plane?, was used also for a few other planes, like a Dornier from 1931 : still it is quite an original concept!

There were even Mustangs in this little family:

lovely! and doable 

[finsrin]

Didn't know of Levasseur PL201.  It and your build have character :)
Can see it in a 1940 movie where Nazi spys are thwarted.

[Daryl J.]

Now that's cool.

[ericr]

another questionable classification : is it a single-float plane, or a flying boat?

There could be a back story for this one : the French had a flying boats airbase in Viet-Nam/Indochina where they flew CAMS 37s, and later they used Gearcats in that part of the world, so they might have float-planized a Bearcat using the hull of of a Cams? at least in their dreams? or at least in mine 

And more than this : it became a biplane by adopting and adapting a pair of SOC Seamew wings. But for the presence of these in a French airbase there is no plausible explanation.

[FAAMAN]

Bearcatfish? Super cool

[GTX_Admin]

I like! :)

[Tophe]

Thanks a lot, ericr, the ErP-38H (Vertical) Double-Lightning has been born today from your idea. Er stands for Ericr, P is for Pursuit.

[ericr]

great! it's a pleasure!