Technological developments of amphibious aircraft designs: Research milestone and current achievement

Abstract This study aims to examine the development of research on seaplanes and determine the innovations that have been achieved or researched. To better serve the demands of real aircraft designers, this research presented a new process for creating seaplane designs. Combining historical seaplane data with current ship and aircraft design data resulted in a new preliminary seaplane concept design. Another benefit of this design approach is transforming an existing landplane into a seaplane by adding a floating device that satisfies seaplane conversion standards. Enhancing hydrodynamic performance was the addition of a trimaran design. A retractable float device was employed to add drag reduction during flying. The trimaran idea provided superior hydrostatic stability and increased water speed, while the floats’ retractable design decreased aerodynamic drag for improved flying performance. A computational design framework is also created to assess the efficacy and performance of hydrofoils for amphibious aircraft, with a particular emphasis on water take-off performance. For validation, a comparison is made between the numerical simulations and the experiment results. The results of this study show that seaplane research over the past decade has produced several innovations, from general to detailed designs. Seaplane also has the potential to be developed in the coming years.