Cancelled: The Navy's SeaMaster

Smithsonian Air and Space Magazine ^ | 3/1/2012 | Mark Wolverton

[U-238]

In the early days of the cold war, the U.S. Navy was feeling left out. The future was nuclear, and the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command seemed to have a lock on the delivery systems. The Navy’s first bid for a piece of the strategic pie, the supercarrier USS United States, was killed by the Pentagon in favor of the Air Force’s B-36 bomber, so the admirals came up with a plan for a force of nuclear-armed seaplanes.

The Seaplane Striking Force would comprise jet-powered flying boats capable of long-range strategic nuclear attack and more mundane tasks such as conventional bombing, mine-laying, and reconnaissance. From the get-go, the Martin P6M SeaMaster (chosen over a competing design from Convair) was something of a contradiction in terms. Seaplanes need to be adept at low-altitude, low-speed flying—tasks not usually associated with high-power jet engines. The first of two prototypes, designated the XP6M-1, made its first flight on July 14, 1955. It featured four Allison J71-A-4 turbojet engines mounted in two nacelles on top of the fuselage near the wing roots,

For stability on the water, the wings, swept 40 degrees, had a distinct anhedral—they drooped, allowing the wingtip tanks to sit on the water and serve as stabilizing floats, with no struts to induce drag. Initial testing, conducted in secret on the Chesapeake Bay near Martin’s Baltimore headquarters, revealed that the jet exhausts were too close to the fuselage and scorched it when the afterburners were used.

[lentulusgracchus]

It truly would have made the Navy many dimensional from the sea - on over and under

The Russians liked the concept a lot. They had a long deployment of large turboprop seaplanes for ASW work in particular, but also SAR and other missions. I think they belonged for the most part to the Northern Fleet.

They could deploy sonobuoys or dipping sonar as wanted, and could float silent, undetected, for long periods while listening to both sonobuoys and VDS.

[lentulusgracchus]

An air group of these in Micronesia would have been golden either during the Cold War, or now monitoring the Red Chinese.

Like Palau and Peleliu? Both close to the Philippine Archipelago .... we'd do well to get back into Clark, frankly. I don't know what Filipino politics looks like these days, but we were being extorted while we were there for a while.

Someplace like Palawan, Sarawak, or Brunei would give us a front-row seat on the emerging resources/mare clausum claims of the Chinese to the whole South China Sea and its seabed.

[tanuki]

“Someplace like Palawan, Sarawak, or Brunei would give us a front-row seat on the emerging resources/mare clausum claims of the Chinese to the whole South China Sea and its seabed.”

No kidding! Obama and company have virtually surrendered the South China Sea and our allies there. I am very concerned about the potential for a regional conflict.