Air support

[gmtello]

Does the float planes benefit of air support from the airports or just from the avs and tenders. My float planes tend to get damage too often

[btd64]

Yes, baseforces or hq's with air support will support float planes. You have to have enough support though. 1 support squad per engine. So a PBY squadron of 12 planes should have 24 support squads at the base for maximum support....GP

[spence]

Float planes do benefit from air support from any unit that has air support squads.

From a realistic standpoint though you need to understand that landing on the water is quite hard on aircraft, much harder than landing on a real airfield with concrete runways. For quite some time the US Coast Guard operated HU-16 (Albatross) flying boats (medium range search a/c) but for about the last 10 years of said operation they were prohibited from landing on the water due to the likelihood of significant damage (and unlikelihood of replacement).

[Leandros]

Also, as I understand it, the AV/AVDs can only fully service the number of seaplanes indicated under the ship's details.

Fred

[fcooke]

Landing on water is indeed hard on aircraft. I had the pleasure once of doing so in the Maldives. Even in perfect weather when she touched down there was water everywhere - well above the wings and tail. It really gives pause to reflect on those crews who landed in crud conditions to rescue downed pilots or shipwrecked sailors. I'm specifically thinking of the Kingfisher that landed and saved something like 14 airmen during a CV strike. But there is a picture out of men sitting on the wings as you cannot stick that many men inside Kingfisher. Don't recall off the top of my head what island it was off, but the Kingfisher had no chance of taking off with that kind of load and ended up taxiing out of harms way, I think to a sub. But the plane was so battered by the water that I think the sub had to sink it even after taking off all the passengers as it was no longer flyable.

If anything I think the game is too kind to how many planes are 'ready to go' on any given day.

Regards,
Frank

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: fcooke

Landing on water is indeed hard on aircraft. I had the pleasure once of doing so in the Maldives. Even in perfect weather when she touched down there was water everywhere - well above the wings and tail. It really gives pause to reflect on those crews who landed in crud conditions to rescue downed pilots or shipwrecked sailors. I'm specifically thinking of the Kingfisher that landed and saved something like 14 airmen during a CV strike. But there is a picture out of men sitting on the wings as you cannot stick that many men inside Kingfisher. Don't recall off the top of my head what island it was off, but the Kingfisher had no chance of taking off with that kind of load and ended up taxiing out of harms way, I think to a sub. But the plane was so battered by the water that I think the sub had to sink it even after taking off all the passengers as it was no longer flyable.

If anything I think the game is too kind to how many planes are 'ready to go' on any given day.

Regards,
Frank

Putting a significant load on top of a small wing would likely have made their structure suspect - perhaps even started to bend them at the wing root. When I was on a C-130 crew one of the things we had to calculate was the weight of fuel in the wing vs the weight of cargo in the hold. Too much fuel in the wing could cause stress cracking.
The reverse happened if you put too much weight in the hold and did not have enough fuel in the wing to counter the weight. There is a very sad video clip of a C-130 converted to a water tanker for fire fighting which had its wings fold up as it descended over a ridge and then leveled out to drop water on the forest fire. The weight of the water and G-forces was too much for the wings to bear.

[Gridley380]

ORIGINAL: fcooke

If anything I think the game is too kind to how many planes are 'ready to go' on any given day.

Yup. Op loss rates are too low, at least for the US, as well.

[Rusty1961]

ORIGINAL: fcooke

Landing on water is indeed hard on aircraft. I had the pleasure once of doing so in the Maldives. Even in perfect weather when she touched down there was water everywhere - well above the wings and tail. It really gives pause to reflect on those crews who landed in crud conditions to rescue downed pilots or shipwrecked sailors. I'm specifically thinking of the Kingfisher that landed and saved something like 14 airmen during a CV strike. But there is a picture out of men sitting on the wings as you cannot stick that many men inside Kingfisher. Don't recall off the top of my head what island it was off, but the Kingfisher had no chance of taking off with that kind of load and ended up taxiing out of harms way, I think to a sub. But the plane was so battered by the water that I think the sub had to sink it even after taking off all the passengers as it was no longer flyable.

If anything I think the game is too kind to how many planes are 'ready to go' on any given day.

Regards,
Frank

Truk was the lagoon. I think the USS Tang had to come in very close to the coastal guns to throw a rope to the plane and tow it out of land-based weapons.