Great pics, V35.

The Ship and Sunderland were training in rough sea landing techniques. The ship sailed in a circle of about 1 mile in diameter. Apparently, the wake creates a calm area in the middle of the circle allowing the Sunderland to make a landing. The exercise took place off the coast of New Zealand.

That’s broadly correct (although it would have been ‘open water landing techniques’ definitely NOT ‘rough sea’ as there’s no good reason for landing a Sunderland in ‘rough seas’ expept in an emergency) and is a standard technique for operating seaplanes with ships. More precisely, the ship makes a turn across the wind, which creates a ‘slick’ of calmer water for the aircraft to land into.

I’m aware of it specifically for retrieving Walrii by RN cruisers, et al, in early W.W.II, but the principle is the same. However this is the first time I’d heard of it in the case of something as large as a Sunderland.

A full circle is unnecessary for the creation of a slick, but may have been a manoeuvre used to put the ship back in position for the next item on the agenda!

Open water landings in seaplanes were generally discouraged in peacetime Commonwealth air forces, as unless it was relatively calm with no major swell, it was all too easy for something to go wrong and the loss of the aircraft and crew. Sunderland floats are all too easily knocked off, by just one wave at the wrong moment, with unfortunate consequences.

It’s a common layman’s assumption that marine aircraft can land on open water with impunity – sometimes they can, but it’s not unlike trying to land a landplane on the first bit of ground that you find. Sometimes it’s OK, often it’s not, and history is full of tragic stories of attempted rescues by Sunderlands which went wrong.

HTH.