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SEAWINGS is now just a few days away from having to pay all the Site Hosting and extra Storage invoices for the coming year's viewing - they are due mid-November as usual - and as usual it's going to be tight. This year has been the lowest donation period in the 16 year history of this site. My grateful thanks goes out to the 6 No. readers/enthusiasts that have donated thus far this year; that's 6 out of hundreds of viewers of this site.

It's quite simple; if I cannot meet the invoices, the site will be shut down on 16th November next until the bills can be paid - I know that as I have spoken to the site hosts this week. That will also cause the loss of the front page link to the Flying Boat Forum unfortunately, so now is the time to save that into your favourites for direct access to it.

I do as much as I possibly can to keep this important reference site afloat; if I can't meet the bills, it won't be here for you for a while. It's up to you.......

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SPECIAL NOTE TO READERS:

I am changing many pages within this site over the next few weeks. For you to keep up with these changes and to be able to view the changed pages perfectly, you will need to click your F5 keyboard key when you visit each time; this key 'refreshes your saved screen cache' and ensures that you are looking at the latest version of the page.

Once I've finished all the 'behind the scenes fiddling' all will settle down and this won't be necessary any longer. Thanks for your patience.

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30th April 2016

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30th March 2016

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28th March 2016

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28th December 2015

SEAWINGS 2016 Hosting Fund Donations Received To Date:

0 in Total

"Every contribution helps, Thanks"

(I actually only know of one 1/72 scale vac-form by the now defunct Execuform company, although it can still be found over here in the UK - unless anyone knows different)

So, when an excellent walk-round of a fabulously restored Mallard comes along it is always a pleasure and this one, donated by our long-time correspondent Vladimir Yakubov, is crying out for a scale model kit to be produced!

In the meantime, here are 140 No. images of pure flying boat pleasure...!

My grateful thanks to Vladimir for another first-class walk-round (...and just look at the weather - not a cloud in the sky. You can feel the heat!)

Tonight, I have great pleasure in introducing the stunning profile artwork of Paul Imhoff from Holland.

Paul has very kindly allowed SEAWINGS to display for you all his superb series of flying boat profiles, part of his much wider collection, drawn over a number of years for the Wings-Aviation website in collaboration with colleague and site owner Michael Fader, based in Switzerland.

You can visit Michael's excellent website here but expect to be still looking through it an hour from now!

In the meantime, take a look at the first part of this up-date in the Profile Gallery here.

Part Two to follow in the next few days - that's if you come back from Michael's site that is....!

My grateful thanks goes to both Paul for taking the time and trouble to send over loads of his finest flying boat artwork and both Michael and Paul for granting publishing permission. Many thanks to you both.

Modelers Enjoy!!

This latest up-date features a walk-round of one of my personal all-time favourite flying boats the magnificent Dornier Do.24-T and, best of all, it was shot by me!

Fulfilling a 'Bucket List' visit for me, here are 214 detailed images of this beautiful 'boat on display at the Deutsches Museum, near Munich, Germany. I hope you enjoy them as much I as I did taking them!

Next up for today, is a superb additional walk-round featuring the Savioa-Marchetti S.56 as taken by our correspondent Vladimir Yakubov from California. Thanks, Vladimir.

I have taken the opportunity to up-date both the Dornier Do.26 Photo Gallery and the Do.26 Plans Gallery with superb new additions received from various correspondents. There has never been that much reference material available on the beautiful looking flying boat, so if you know of - or have - anything else that would benefit us all please consider sending it into SEAWINGS for inclusion here.

Finally for today, correspondent Patrick Hore very kindly donated original NACA Circulars from his personal archive of a number of flying boats, each one quite highly detailed with an accurate and extensive text description of each 'boat followed by a a number of interesting pictures and drawings containing a host of detail, much of which I hadn't seen before, all drawn from publications at the time.

These have been added into the Manuals Gallery for want of a better place to put them! My grateful thanks goes to Patrick for his time and trouble.

Continuing on the Felixstowe F.2A theme with the remaining features I have to-hand, today I have added a first-class kit review sourced from the sadly, now discontinued, Scale Plastic & Rail website from the USA written by James Hatch on the WNW's 1/32 scale kit.

I was planning to do exactly the same as this with my kit, but it would be impossible to better what James has written and illustrated here.

I will up-load the F2.A 'Early' kit review in due course, but for now, if you haven't yet made your mind up whether to buy one, read this!

Next up, courtesy of our long-time Canadian correspondent and ardent flying boat fan, Alex Norton, comes a concise article, long-out-of-print, by the late Chaz Bowyer entitled 'Fighting 'Boats 1914 - 1918' published in Aircraft Illustrated Extra, No. 8, 1970 which I have added to the F.2A Reference Archive

Chaz Bowyer was a very respected aviation author here in England as I grew up and was either a contributor to, or the author of, many highly- detailed aviation books and articles over many years. Many thanks, Alex.

If anyone has any other Felixstowe F.2A references of any type; images, articles, plans, drawings etc so far not featured here, please send them into SEAWINGS for inclusion into the Archive.

Looking for anything that might assist with the general Felixstowe F.2A theme, I have started a Photo Gallery on the Curtiss H12 - not much there at present, so if anyone has access to any images not currently shown, please send them in for inclusion.

F.2A Up-Date: Just been sent three additional images which I have added to the F.2A Photo Gallery.

Continuing on the Felixstowe F.2A theme, today courtesy of the kind generosity of Andy Kemp, Chairman of Cross & Cockade International magazine and Author Adrian Vicary, I have been granted permission to up-load Adrian's extensive article featuring details of the F.2A High Visibility - the so called 'dazzle' Schemes - packed full of drawings, photo's and details into our Out Of Print Article Gallery. This is the definitive read on the subject so far. Thank you so much, Gentlemen.

Also, our French correspondent, Patrice Romain has sent in his high detailed article which appeared in REPLIC magazine in 2004 of his build of the 1/72 scale Roden kit. Whilst it might be a smaller scale, this article nevertheless is useful on a number of levels - it features some useful photo's - albeit it is written in French. Many thanks, Patrick.

Next up is a superb article from a 1978 issue of Cross & Cockade magazine written by the renowned and authorative and sadly late author, Kenneth M. Molson covering the design and construction of the Felixstowe F5L, the later development of the F.2A. This article features many interior images which serve to give a very good idea of areas of the F.2A - all courtesy of Andy Kemp - thanks, Andy.

Certainly the drawings are useful for a H-16 if it ever were to be released, and after the events of this past month who would bet against that now!

Today, I have up-dated the Colour Chart Gallery with a series of colour charts covering a range of countries air forces, from WWII, through Post-War  to Vietnam, some of which will be required on flying boats.

I hope you find them as useful as i have.

Meanwhile, on the F.2A 'trail' again, our good friend and correspondent Alex Norton from Canada has very kindly provided scans of the Curtiss H-16 Erection Handbook which I have turned into a pdf and placed in the Manuals Gallery.

This is very interesting as not only does it describe the 'boat in some detail but also features a number of extremely clear internal photos during construction which gives one a very good idea of what's inside it; and being the later US-built development of the F.2A may prove useful to some modelers.

Alex, as ever, grateful thanks....

Finally, I've added the Supermarine Walrus Profile magazine to the Out of Print Articles Gallery tonight. Still one of the best 'one-stop' series ever issued.

Here is the Felixstowe F.2A Reference Archive where I have attempted to place all the information that is available to me for the benefit of scale modelers about to embark on constructing the new 1/32 WNW plastic kit as seen below.

Click on the link and you will find pictures, plans, drawings and engine details.

These two for me personally are my 'Holy Grail' - the one 'boat above all others that I have waited to see in a large scale; I need that now as I get older! Packed full of internal detail, they will look spectacular when finished.

OMG, what a Christmas present!

Announced as their 'Special Christmas Release' these kits should be on sale just before, or just after Christmas direct from the WNW website.

I have added what I know to-date into the Scale Model Kit News page for you to read about and will be providing full one-click references in due course.

For now though, I'm just going for a quiet lie down until the shaking subsides............

Thanks to the 15 contributors as listed at right, together with my own funds, the (not inconsiderable) costs were met to cover all the operations of a site of this size.

But, as last year - and I guess for every year to come until a full sponsor comes forward - the numbers are rolled back to zero and funding starts all over again, as of now!

But, for now my grateful, heartfelt thanks goes to the '15'....Thank Guys.

So tonight, here is the Boeing B-314 'Clipper' - SEAWINGS Detailpics image gallery.!

The reason this one took a long time was finding, and formatting, the 'right' images and here I have had great help from a number of 'friends of SEAWINGS' - thanks, everyone.

The next one in this series will be the Dornier Do.24.......hopefully, quicker than this one took!

This WR represents a personal milestone for me as I have always wanted to get close to a Goose, and thanks to the fantastic help and assistance received during my visit from N.Y. Park Ranger 'Linc' Hallowell the time I spent there was just enthralling. Linc, you are a 'Star'..!

Grateful thanks, as ever, goes to Alex.

Following on from the above WR, I have just up-loaded a series of images also taken by Reggie of the UC-1 Twin Bee to the Photo Gallery. Thanks again, Reggie..!

I have changed the site header/navigation bar having finally found the perfect image I've been  searching for to represent the 'flag-head' of this site.

Everything should work ok and navigation is now easier than it was but if anyone has any problems, please let me know.

SEAWINGS 2014/2015 Hosting Fund Donations Received To Date:

15 in Total

"Every contribution helps, Thanks"

Yeah, I know, it's been a while since any up-dates were done and there is a very good reason for that; put simply, I've had a break - simple as that. After 14 years of continuous up-dates, website building, archiving etc, events and opportunities got in the way and I went with the flow, as it were.

Here in the UK, the British summer weather has been exceptionally sunny and hot - 100° over a large number of weekends - so gardening, 'lazy-days' BBQ's around the patio with the family and friends, home decorating and D.I.Y. all took a part in keeping me otherwise busy. Mind you, that hasn't in any way stopped the in-ward flow of flying boat images, plans and references - it's taken me one whole week just to list and archive it all!

So, summer's winding down now, Autumn is just around the corner and the nights are beginning to draw in - indeed, winter is coming so it's time for me to get my act together once again and re-start the routine up-dates with all the new reference material that's arrived!

BTW: A great big 'Thank You' to the Donation contributors listed above - the invoices for the site operational services are due next month - website costs are one thing that never takes a break!

I've started by up-dating and adding to the Republic RC-3 Seabee Photo Gallery following contributions from correspondents around the World.

Continuing the RC-3 Seabee theme, next up is the twin-engined conversion, the United Consultants (now, STOL) UC-1 Twin Bee and doesn't it look fantastic in these excellent images from the camera of our long-time roving correspondent, Igor Kolokolov from Russia. Here are 57 excellent detail images for anyone contemplating a model conversion. My grateful thanks, as ever, goes to to Igor.

Finally for today, long-time correspondent Olivier Faivre has very kindly supplied a full set of Flight and Service Manuals for the RC-3 Seabee, each packed full of details drawings for model makers to add loads of details; Fantastic..! Thanks, Olivier..!

Here is a perfect illustration of this; a gorgeous multi-shot series of images from the camera of correspondent Phil Benton who spent time with the Supermarine Walrus/Seagull V at the RAF Museum, London.

There is always a good reason for adding another WR to the collection featuring the same 'boat; here it's different viewing angles, lots of detail and very high-quality.

Many thanks, Phil.

SEAWINGS 2014/2015 Hosting Fund Donations Received To Date:

7 in Total

"Every contribution helps, Thanks"

Wow, that felt good putting this lot together, I can tell you.

If anyone 'out-there' has any other images available to them, please send them into SEAWINGS to add here.

These reports are very detailed text-wise, as good as any overall manual and contain some very interesting photo's, as well as scale drawings.

Considering the Late 501 report was written in 1932, and the Late 521 in 1936, the detail repays careful reading, especially if you own one of the Aerovac 1/72 scale vac-form model kits of the type. Many thanks, Axel.

Would yours truly love one of these...! It would also make a smashing subject for a flying scale model I suspect. Many thanks, fworx.

Following right behind is another fascinating craft, this one being the 'Ivolga' EK-12 Ekranoplan, a W.I.G. 'boat - Wing-In-ground-Effect - under development and sales since 2006. Our roving correspondent, Igor Kolokolov caught up with it at a recent exhibition and shot this superb walk-round. Many thanks, Igor.

Finally today, I've added a series of superb original cockpit images of the Supermarine Walrus Mk.I into the Walk-Round section of the site, under the DETAILpics banner.

These images are absolutely packed full of detail, but regrettably I have been unable thus far to trace where they originate from. Wouldn't it be great if there were more in the series!

Andy did quite a job on this kit and his article will certainly help anyone else contemplating building to the same degree of detail.

Many thanks, Andy.

Altogether, we now have the complete series of Shorts classic 'boats in the most glorious photographic detail; the Empire, Hythe, Solent and now the Sandringham. What a set..!

I personally never knew these images had been taken and for the archive to be released onto the internet last year by the New Zealand Library represents a massive endeavour for the staff to undertake and a magnificent achievement in sharing these absolutely fantastic flying boat images.

As I've said before, I wonder how many more photographic archives are 'out there' waiting to be released by some forward-thinking organisation.

What I personally would have given to have stood alongside Leo White during his photographic visits to these 'boats doesn't bear thinking about. What an era to have witnessed, been a part of or have travelled by.......

There are still further excellent flying boat images to be featured here but, sadly no more 'sets'. These will be up-loaded into various galleries over the next few weeks.

What a couple of fantastic months for up-dates......I've enjoyed the many hours of formatting this lot, I can tell you! What a treat...!

Many thanks.

So, over the next few weeks I'll be adding either kits, decals or books to the SEAWINGS Shop which should - I hope - raise funds for the coming year's hosting bills as well as giving someone a nice surprise to get the chance to purchase something that is now no longer available in most cases. Nice feeling that.......

So, today I have added a Decal Sheet page to the Shop and placed the first sheets in there; these are all sold on a first-come basis.

Finally, I have no intention of 'rivalling' the established retailers by the way; once the stock is gone, that's it. Hope you find something useful.

Next up today is a series of close-up images I shot at the French Aircraft Museum, Le Bourget, Paris of one of the four Pratt & Whitney R 1830/90C Twin Wasp engines restored to it's former glory as part of their intensive restoration of the Short Sandringham there.

If that flying boat ends up looking as good as this engine then it will be a sight to behold!

SEAWINGS 2014/2015 Hosting Fund Donations Received To Date:

6 in Total

"Every contribution helps, Thanks"

OMG....! These images are absolutely awesome; superb examples of the professional photographer's art and skills from what is now, sadly a bygone era. Just look at the atmosphere, the employees and passengers during their daily routines, the crystal-clear details picked out in each image - this particular series could be called, 'the Mother Load' as there are so many of them!

As with the previous galleries from this source, I have formatted as many of the images as I can to extract the close-up details for the benefit of the modelers amongst us.

All we need now is an accurate scale kit to make use of it all...!

Believe it or not, there's more to come........soon.

SEAWINGS 2014/2015 Hosting Fund Donations Received To Date:

2 in Total

"Every contribution helps, Thanks"

So, I have had a re-thought and have changed things and decided to continue with my tried and tested format on this site of placing everything in 'compartments' where one will find what ne needs by looking at the Index. So, the original Sunderland Mk.1 detailed images have been converted into the new DETAILpics series.

Put another way, I have been messing around behind the scenes for five days! Sorry!

There is much more to come from Bart soon; trust me....!

So, this past week I have added these images to the existing gallery. Incidentally, it takes approx 10 days of evenings and week-end to download, format and prepare each gallery series, hence the longer time between up-dates.

The detail is simply staggering, the quality awesome; Leo's images are the finest series of flying boat images I think I have ever had the pleasure to see. What a magnificent treat!

My grateful thanks goes to the NL of NZ for granting their permission to use their images. Enjoy..!

SEAWINGS 2014/2015 Hosting Fund Donations Received To Date:

1 in Total

"Every contribution helps, Thanks"

Here's a cracking start to 2014 with the No.4 of the new 'DETAILpics SPECIAL' series of close-up walk-round and walk-through images focusing on one particular flying boat type, utilising as many fine images as I can source.

This latest series is one I have dreamed of putting together for years and years, and features one of my all-time favourite types; the Short S.30 'C' Class Empire flying boat.

Now, thanks to the release on-line of the awesome images contained within the National Library of New Zealand's Alexander Turnbull Aviation archive collection, which I personally have never, ever, seen before it is possible to present a number of flying boat types in unprecedented photographic detail.

My grateful thanks goes to the NL of NZ for granting their permission to use their images. Enjoy..!

SEAWINGS 2014/2015 Hosting Fund Donations Received To Date:

0 in Total

"Every contribution helps, Thanks"

It has taken three weeks just to archive most of it, and work out (1) what I have, and (2) how best to use it...!

Tonight's up-date is a small example of this; the National Library of New Zealand recently released on-line some of the most fantastic flying boat photograph's I have ever seen, which results in tonight's latest up-date; the Shorts S.25 'Hythe' Class -DETAILpics Special. I have never seen photographs of this detail and quality in my life, and it has taken until I reach nearly 60 years old (27th December, for those that are interested!!) to see them; that begs the question, 'Just how much more is 'out-there in other similar archives just waiting to be scanned and released'...?

The Hythe Class is one of my all-time-favourite flying boats, so, I have taken the images and have turned them into a walk-round reference Gallery I thought I would never, ever, see. Enjoy!!