Hydroski fighters

Do anybody have info about two british hydroski jet fighters SARO P.121 and P.142? Fighter that can land on water is still interesting.


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[edit on 26/9/2005 by Mirthful Me]

I think that the attached link might be what you are looking for. I do know that one plane using hydroski technology was the F-2Y Sea Dart.

Hydroski

Saro began working on this type of concept in WW2 when it was felt that the allies would require a long range jet fighter with water borne capability in order to pursue the war against Japan after the surrender of Germany.

To this end a prototype fighter was actually built and flown in 1947 which was called the SR/A.1. It was powered by two metrovick Beryl axial engines and armed with 4 20mm hispano cannon.



Despite its appearance it was reported to be very manoeverable and easy tro fly but the end of the war had already killed any RAF interest in the type and it was completed only as an experimental type.

The P.121 was an upgrade of the initial concept taking advances in aerodynamics into consideration and was the first proposed use of the hydroski arrangement leter tested by Convair in the USA.

The advantage of the hydroski being that it allowed a water borne jet fighter to be produced withouth the bulk of the boat hulled SRA.1.

The P121 was largely contemporaneous with the US Convair Sea Dart and the different way in which the two countries went about things is well illustrated by the fact that after much prevarication the British 'Ministry of Supply' finally decided not to proceed with the project in the same year that the Sea Dart actually flew.

There is very little available information available on the similar P142 except that it was a very radical twin boom design with the pilot accomodated in a central pod (think water borne jet powered P-38!!) and an engine, a hydroski and a tailfin accomodated on each boom. I'd like to see a picture of that!

wow suprising I'd never heard of jet aircraft with the ability to land on water. Thanks for the thread matej.

The only water planes id heard of were prop sea planes . I'd like to see more also. Research time.

Vorta

I believe the USSR developed a similar plane. it was huge, with 6 engines IIRC, but never flew very high. I don't think it was ever able to get out of the ground effect (water effect?)

That sounds more like the ekranoplan prototypes zaphod, which are quite different. They were never intended to take off and fly like these projects, the 'ground effect' was their natural environment, rather like a hovercraft.

It might be. I really don't remember many details about it. I remember seeing pics of it in a book I had years ago, and a little bit about it, but that was a long time ago.

Here is a picture of the SeaDart I took in front of the San Diego Aerospace Musem this summer, an impressive aircraft, even if it's a little overshadowed by the SR-71 parked next to it:

That's the Balboa Park museum? I loved that whole park, it's way cool.

Yep, it's definately worth the trip if you're in the area, lots of cool aircraft there.
I will try to post a little photo tour in this forum at some point.

I remember going to the old one as a kid, before it burned down. They had a bunch of cool exhibits, including one of the Mercury capsules, one you could actually go and sit inside.

My biggest thanks goes to Waynos. The reason is, that my question are allways very specific. I know everything about Seadart and other projects, but I am searching exactly for P.121 and P.142 info.

For others, here is short information. At America there was created program Skate. The main goal was to built a hydrojet fighter, able to land and start from water thanks to skis. Many different wind tunnel models were built. Models called Betta 1 and 2 led directly to Convair XF2Y Seadart.





The really built and tested plane was called Seadart. The picutre shows single and twin skis version.



Convair also proposed little number of different designs



After termination of Seadart project Lockeed proposed similar water fighter, intended primarily for european NATO states.



In the Soviet union, there were also plans for the same class plane. They were made mainly at TsAGI with designations project 4221, 4221a and 5202.




All over the world exist many water bombers, hydroplans, ecranoplans and WIGs, but this topic is only about water jet fighters.