Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Plane That Accidentally Circumnavigated the World (2014)

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 52 posts

Re: A Plane That Accidentally Circumnavigated the World (2014)

#41

Post by Asooka »

sjm-lbm wrote: post #23
elihu wrote: post #19

Whatever happened to large sea planes? I imagine they were phased out because they were too expensive, unsafe, or for some other logistical reason, but it seems like they would still be practical for some purposes.

There's probabally other limitations, but as I understand it one of the limiting factors is takeoff and landing speed. Even on a good day and in a still harbor, water is pretty bumpy, which means you need to be out of it at a pretty low speed. This leads to all sorts of tradeoffs elsewhere in the airplane design (mostly, again - as I understand it, in wing design) that hamper the airplane in other ways. In the end, i…

Has anyone experimented with hydrofoils to take the plane out of the water and have a higher take-off speed?

Edit: answering my own question https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/24526/has-anyon...

Re: A Plane That Accidentally Circumnavigated the World (2014)

#45

Post by chha »

elihu wrote: post #19

Whatever happened to large sea planes? I imagine they were phased out because they were too expensive, unsafe, or for some other logistical reason, but it seems like they would still be practical for some purposes.

During ww2 thousands of new airports were built all over the world, including in very remote areas such as various pacific atolls where flying boats had been the only alternative pre-war. Once the war ended many of these became available for refueling stops, and as land-based aircraft often had a lower seat cost/distance as well as higher cruising speed they took over from flying boats.

Re: A Plane That Accidentally Circumnavigated the World (2014)

#46

Post by dahauns »

corywright wrote: post #13
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #3

Have the movie rights been sold yet? I can totally see this movie in my head already.

Perfect for Tom Hanks.

With Ron Howard directing.

And Ed Harris as Jack Poindexter, the veteran radio officer, already retired from field service, volunteering for one last trip (and telling his wife on the phone he'll be late for dinner).

Re: A Plane That Accidentally Circumnavigated the World (2014)

#47

Post by gambiting »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #26
ansible wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. It was a big bird for its time. It is a shame that none were preserved, though that isn't much of a surprise because even just one of them would be expensive to store and maintain in a non-flyable state.

There is a full size mockup though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_314_Clipper#Surviving_a...

"full size" doesn't include the wings, sadly - just the interior and main hull.

Re: A Plane That Accidentally Circumnavigated the World (2014)

#48

Post by toss1 »

lisper wrote: post #12
toss1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came to say exactly that

The way to do this on HN is simply to upvote the story. Comments should be substantive. Otherwise we'd be overrun by "me to" comments.

It was so good I thought I'd make an exception and do both

Most downvotes I've ever gotten on any comment, iirc.

Thank you for the explanation, tho. It's sure be nicer here if people would do that instead of just drive-by downvoting someone for being a bit over-enthusiastic

Re: A Plane That Accidentally Circumnavigated the World (2014)

#49

Post by ghaff »

protomyth wrote: post #35
esaym wrote: post #6

Similar articles have been posted before. All of them are based on the book "The Long Way Home". I bought it for my 88 year old grandfather last Christmas. He power read through the thing in a couple of hours and handed it back to me, telling me to read it too. Certainly an interesting read. But with a little more historical context, you will find that even as early as the 1930's, the US was worried about dominance i…

For an early history of Pan Am and the Pacific check "China Clipper: The Age of the Great Flying Boats" by Robert Gandt. It’s second half is pretty much Pan Am only.

Also An American Saga: Juan Trippe and his PanAm empire. Talks a lot about building Pacific refueling stops like at Wake.

Re: A Plane That Accidentally Circumnavigated the World (2014)

#50

Post by lisper »

toss1 wrote: post #48
lisper wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way to do this on HN is simply to upvote the story. Comments should be substantive. Otherwise we'd be overrun by "me to" comments.

It was so good I thought I'd make an exception and do both Most downvotes I've ever gotten on any comment, iirc. Thank you for the explanation, tho. It's sure be nicer here if people would do that instead of just drive-by downvoting someone for being a bit over-enthusiastic

Oh, it's definitely OK to explain a downvote. In fact, it's little bit rude to downvote without giving an explanation. But a comment that says nothing but "What a great article!" just invites an endless chain of "Yeah, I thought so too", "Me too", "Me three" comments. Soon HN would become indistinguishable from Reddit.
Post reply on HN