Here is a great little snippet from the June 1944 RNZAF Contact Magazine.
“London And The Future
A London airport, to be used as a base for both land aircraft and seaplanes and costing twenty million pounds, is visualised by Mr F.G. Miles, the aircraft designer.
Such an airport would have runways two and a-half miles long by six hundred feet wide, and would be capable of dealing with eight million passengers a year on an allowance of one hundred and fifty per aircraft.”
Is this what was to become Heathrow or Gatwick? Or was it just Pie in the Sky?
A waterway for seaplanes? Sounds like Mr Miles was a bit behind the times, was this ever seriously considered for a postwar London airport?
By: Charlielima5 - 8th August 2004 at 14:35
In my humble opinion, F G Miles was rarely if ever behind the times and in fact the site chosen for this major new London Airport 60 years ago was at a certain Thames Estuary location called Cliffe – which was still being proposed for a new London Airport very recently!
By: Dave Homewood - 8th August 2004 at 10:37
Cheers Moggy,
That’s an interesting point that they still thought there would be an Empire. I guess such a water-port would have been a good idea at the time. I also guess there were a lot of plans in those years of converting all the Sunderlands and other seaplanes to airliners and freighters after the war.
I agree that the Russians have some very good ideas and are leaps ahead of the west in seaplane technology. Those ‘planes’ that skim along the surface are awesome. Have any actually gone into service yet? Or are they still being tested?
I saw the more conventional jet powered Beriev Albatross flying boat they brought to the Auckland International Airport “Air Expo 92” airshow in 1992. They displayed it very impressively and were hoping to get some sales for the model in the west. I think it actually did a whole world tour. That flying boat was fantastic. At the time loads of punters predicted they’d be great for operations in New Zealand as our four main cities and many others have harbours. Sadly I’ve never seen one since anywhere. I wonder if they sold any abroad.
Here’s a link to the one that came here
http://www.kiwiaircraftimages.com/beriev.html
I personally would love to do an international flight in a flying boat. If it cannot be Motat’s Solent (which is sadly grounded forever 🙁 ), I’d be happy to do it in the Albatross.
By: Moggy C - 8th August 2004 at 10:14
Here is a great little snippet from the June 1944 RNZAF Contact Magazine.
“London And The Future
A waterway for seaplanes? Sounds like Mr Miles was a bit behind the times, was this ever seriously considered for a postwar London airport?
Yes it was seriously considered.
After our experiences in the preceding couple of years we had no problem building large, concrete airfields. We could knock one up in the time it takes today to fill in the forms to get the forms to make the planning application.
But we also believed we would still have an Empire, and the seaplane was viewed as the alternative to building vast airfields all over the dark continent, and Far East.
Before you write Miles off as behind the times completely, you might like to look at what the Russians have been doing with their ‘ground-effect’ plane-things. When the world gets further down the path of running out of fuel, the efficiency savings they can offer may transform some routes.
Moggy
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August 8, 2004 at 10:06 am