Beriev Be-200 and A-42 (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

From the 1920s until the 1950s many airliners, cargo planes and naval patrol aircraft were flying boats.

It was a US Navy Curtiss NC-4 flying boat which made the first transatlantic crossing in 1919, though the trip took 19 days and required many stops for refuelling and repairs.    Other famous flying boats from this period include the Sikorsky S-38, Boeing Clipper, Grumman Goose, Consolidated Catalina, Short Sunderland and Martin Mars.   These aircraft provided an extra safety factor when flying over water, and could also get to islands or coastal towns which didn't have airports.   However, after World War Two the development of reliable land-based aircraft with long range reduced the advantages of the amphibians, and in western countries flying boats are only used as water bombers against forest fires, and as short-range tourist planes.   The only countries still operating them as military patrol aircraft are Japan and Russia.

The Beriev design bureau is a Russian aviation company which continues to produce flying boats.   In this photograph you can see their large A-42 Albatross naval patrol aircraft in formation with the Be-200 Altair water bomber at their test facility near the Russian resort town of Gelendzhik on the Black Sea.   They have also developed a small piston-engined flying boat called the Be-103 Snipe, which flew with its larger stablemates at the 2006 Gidroaviasalon ("hydro-aviation exhibition") at Gelendzhik.   Although all these aircraft have been flying for some years, the company has had little success finding customers to buy them, and their future survival is in doubt.