Saunders-Roe SR.45 Princess at the Farnborough Air Show, September 1956

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Apexnanoman@reddit

It always blows me away that the ultra wealthy fly around in boring ass jets. If you're worth multiple billions of dollars, why are you not getting around the world in a flying boat?

With that type of money you could have one custom built with jet engines. And it would be so much more interesting.

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ConstructionNew501@reddit

There is current production jet flying boat amphibian. Beriev Be-200.

Usually seen as a fire fighter but is available in a passenger configuration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_Be-200

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-Kollossae-@reddit

Taste and money don’t always hang out together :) Hopefully one day there’s a world where enthusiasts like us get to ride along too, even if we don’t own the thing.

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Apexnanoman@reddit

Like 3 years ago, one of the Mars flying boats was for sale.

The fact that someone wealthy didn't buy it instantly made me sad.

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Ornery_Year_9870@reddit

Well, someone wealthy DID buy the Philippine Mars and arranged for it to be flown to Arizona for display at their museum.

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Apexnanoman@reddit

Wasn't aware of that. That's awesome to hear. Always loved flying boats. My "If I had infinite money" as a kid was to make a copy of the spruce goose with engines of a tu-95.

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Hughes was seriously thinking about turboprops for the Hercules. There were conceptual drawings on Ebay a few years ago; I wish I had bought them. But reliable turboprops simply were not available in 1947-48.

I lament the unavailability of a Tu-95 for display in the US. The last sort of viable chance for that is when India retired theirs, but it didn't work out.

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Laundry_Hamper@reddit

It probably would have been better with turboprops, but the Wasp Majors were absolutely sufficient for the Hercules. They just look like little babies because of the scale of the rest of the thing.

Compare this:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Pregnant_Guppy_NASA.jpg

...with the Goose:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/H-4_Hercules_2.jpg

Same engines - if four of them can fly a plane containing lumps of Saturn rockets around the place, eight could definitely get the Goose up to cruising altitude.

The Guppies were built using bodies from Stratocruisers or Stratofreighters, and when that Pregnant Guppy design was upgraded to the Super Guppy, the Wasps from the Stratofreighter were swapped for Allison T56 units. Stratocruisers and Stratofreighters were both first flown in 1947, the same year as the Hercules. It's totally plausible that on a different timeline, a compos mentes Hughes (who was alive until the mid-70s) would have given the Goose the same treatment - and there's still a Super Guppy in service today.

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Apexnanoman@reddit

The spruce goose was well over double the weight of the super guppy though. Double the engines but something like 250k lbs dry vs 100k lbs dry.

As far as I understood it was essentially underpowered for taking off from water. But yes it's sad that the engines didn't exist and Hughes went insane.

What if land is a fun and depressing place at the same time.

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Laundry_Hamper@reddit

The Princess had a max takeoff weight of 345,025 lb, and its turboprops gave it the same amount of power as the Wasps on the Goose.

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Apexnanoman@reddit

Dry weight on the lr

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Laundry_Hamper@reddit

Yeah. It speaks to that indistinction between madness and stupidity. You have to be a real dumbass to want to make something like the Spruce Goose, and a real genius to, ultimately, succeed

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Apexnanoman@reddit

There's just not really anybody like Howard Hughes in existence these days.

All the super rich have the same yacht builders make their yachts, they all have houses next to each other in the French alps, they all even buy the same limited edition Ferraris and private jets.

Richard Branson is one of the few modern hughes esque ones. Seems to be one of the few who doesn't make money purely to make more money.

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Ornery_Year_9870@reddit

Hughes and his team of engineers were talented and skilled enough to run the numbers on the Hercules. And consider the gigantic wing area and high lift airfoil compared to the Stratocruiser. It was adequately powered. Whether or not that airframe would've held up in service, I don't know.

As for Hughes' mental state: "insanity" is such a loaded term, that's not used medically. Legally, yes. But he was certainly mentally ill by the late 1940s: OCD, germophobia, and addiction to opiates thanks to his long hospital stay after nearly dying in the XF-11 crash. He never got the treatment (such as it was in those days) he needed. In fact, the opposite: the Mormons he hired to look after his affairs (Hughes felt Mormons were trustworthy) made sure to keep him heavily doped up and isolated so they could swindle him out of millions of dollars. It's a sad story.

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Apexnanoman@reddit

Oh I know Insanity isn't really medically correct.

It's also hard to really find the correct terminology when it's someone with so much secrecy surrounding them like Hughes.

I do know that his mental state certainly spiraled after the filming of the conqueror and the resulting issues. While it certainly wasn't the beginning, it definitely didn't help.

I'm obviously not an aeronautical engineer so I don't know if it's truly adequately powered to take off and fly with a usable load when out of ground effect or not. And some very smart people have gotten their calculations wrong on various vehicles before. Be it ships, planes, cars, etc.

But eight turbo props which certainly have made it much more viable.

All at all, it's sad that it never flew again.

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Laundry_Hamper@reddit

It was adequately powered, but the public at large thought it was impossible. It was built right on the advent of the jet age and was already obsolete before completion, and Hughes knew it. The run when it flew was supposed to be nothing more than a bit of taxiing, but the project ran on government funding which was about to disappear completely and there were camera crews on the ground and in the cockpit, so Hughes pushed it into the air to prove to the public his big project wasn't a trick to make off with taxpayer money. If he hadn't done it then, it would never have flown at all

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Ornery_Year_9870@reddit

You're right. And compare that big, fat high-lift, low speed airfoil on the Herculese to the thin, high aspect wing of the Stratocruiser.

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Laundry_Hamper@reddit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GdFBW6p8wQ

Feast your eyes and ears

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HuttStuff_Here@reddit

The Hawaii Mars was also sent to a museum.

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Grimnebulin68@reddit

I had a model of a RAF Short Sunderland as a kid, it was huge for 1:72!

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IRingTwyce@reddit

Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson according to Google.

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Ornery_Year_9870@reddit

That is correct.

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couplingrhino@reddit

There are very few jet seaplanes for many reasons. Seawater is hard enough on any aircraft, but it really does a number on the innards of jet engines.

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Apexnanoman@reddit

Oh yeah no doubt about it. Maintenance costs would be intense. But on the scale of someone worth 20 billion it wouldn't matter.

Would be wildly unviable from a commercial perspective of course. Operating costs would probably be 100s of thousands an hour lol.

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couplingrhino@reddit

Even the most... eccentric supervillionaire will soon get tired of a plane that needs all its engines rebuilt every time he arrives at his tropical island hideout. You never know when you'll need to make a quick getaway.

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Apexnanoman@reddit

Like I said.....the ultra wealthy are boring. Having that level of money and buying the same jet, the same style alpine condo, a mansion in the same neighborhood as all the rest....

I just don't get it. I'd drive around in a tank with tires or something. All that money and not doing anything just wildly impractical and fun with it....just boggles my mind.

When you can spend millions of dollars a day and still be rich.....why be boring and obsess about making more money?

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Rooilia@reddit

Ok, which companies today build flying boats in airliner size and private jet luxury? Idk any. Even flying boats for passanger use or at least size of a single isle airliner, no bell is ringing.

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Atholthedestroyer@reddit

Saunders-Roe Duchess. I don't think it got much beyond a few concept drawings, but that is essentially what you've described.

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HumpyPocock@reddit

Saunders–Roe DUCHESS aka Model No P.131

Just figured I’d add this a painting of the Duchess tho rather suspect most folks here would’ve seen it before. Indeed, am unclear precisely how far along they were with the design process, suspect quite early as you say. Zero sales of the Princess sealed the Duchess’ fate, regardless.

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Maro1947@reddit

I'd ave one of those new Beriev jets

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vonHindenburg@reddit

Top purchase on my list of things to get if I win the powerball (after LAND) is Catalina. The sexiest useful plane in the world.

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Apexnanoman@reddit

Yeah I adored the PBY as a kid. Hell of a workhorse.

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propsie@reddit

Not just strapping turboprops to one, they're trying to build new ones, despite their late-90s internet website.

Their render of a Catalina gunship is... sure something

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Apexnanoman@reddit

Oh my God ......a Catalina gunship would be the best war video game Easter egg ever. It's just such an absurd idea.

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Direct_Cabinet_4564@reddit

The cost to build and certify a pressurized, jet powered flying boat would easily cost several hundred million dollars and that’s if you are lucky.

Billionaires aren’t rolling on a pile of cash in their mansion like Scrooge McDuck. They are worth that much because they own businesses and investments that make them money. Which they would have to liquidate to pay for their flying jet boat.

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Apexnanoman@reddit

They rarely liquidate anything. They take out loans against their assets. Then they can deduct the interest.

And a couple billion over 3-4 years of development doesn't matter to someone deducting a good chunk of the cost off their taxes and who is worth 20 billion to begin with.

And on top of that....having all the money in the world so pointless if you do the exact same things all the other ultra wealthy do.

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