Warbird Information Exchange

F4F-3S Wildcatfish at Bethpage Feb 1943

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Don't touch my junk!!

I always did think that was cool.Man it must have been a slug for sure.

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Hang The Expense

it had great lines but slower than heck!! you should see a helldiver or c-47 on floats!! equally good looking but must have been like flying a cinder block!!

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Well, with the XC-47C, it apparently did well becuase there's still one flying.

MAAM-SIM did the XC-47C and if the flight dynamics are remotely close, then it actually doesn't fly bad, and it's a very useful airplane able to operate pretty heavy loads in and out of lakes and rivers that give Beaver and Otter pilots headaches.

Didnt they bring a C-47 to oshkosh one year on floats?

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Hang The Expense

The C-47 on floats is an impressive airplane to see in flight - much of its history has been here in Maine - but it is not original, but rather a "marriage of a C-47 and set of Edo floats put together in recent years. None of the original C-47 floatplanes survived.

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Kevin McCartney

I have been under the impression that the Maine C-47 on floats is not actually a C-47 but a DC-3 variant that would have had a some other C number than 47. Specifically I think it has Wright rather that Pratt and Whitney engines. Confirmation anyone?

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

C-53....on floats, here is a link and more pics and specifics on her history
http://www.douglasdc3.com/float/float.htm

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Aviation Illustration Website
http://shepartstudio.com/illustration/

I believe the more accurate statement would be that none of the XC-47C's survive as XC-47C's. My understanding is that most were "dismounted" from their floats and returned to regular C-47's.

Wildcat -- at first glance it looks like the prop blades would erode fairly quickly. They'd be in the splash zone from the floats at the beginning of the take-off run.

The aircraft is set well back on the floats -- not that there's much choice for a short stubby airplane with a radial engine.

-- and where do you tie-on your canoe?...

Dave

The Wildcatfish. Grumman attempt to provide a recoverable convoy escort before the jeep carriers were available.

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

Now THERE'S something you don't see every day...Hmmmmm. Kinda gives me an idea though for fishing. Fly into a lake. Fish off of the wing for a while maybe take swim, dry off, and the fly away to my private seaplane dock on a lake.

Nice thought though don't you think ??

Paul

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Dammit Jim, I'm an Airplane Inspector/Mechanic not a Doctor !

At least one, maybe more, of the float equipped C-47s was photographed in the storage area at Walnut Ridge. As I recall it wasn't too far from the "disassembly" line and smelter complex in the photo I remember seeing. I doubt it escaped the reclamation process.

S