End of the (float) line
It happened 80 years ago this month. A close look at the Curtiss-Wright SC Seahawk, the last hurrah of cruiser and battleship-carried floatplanes.
Official period caption: “Navy scout seaplane, the SC-1 Seahawk. Note pronounced Dinedral angle of wings for greater stability and skillful design of this new bird as it soars from the water, 16 June 1945.”
80-G-47761
Navy scout seaplane, the SC-1 “Seahawk”. Bow view from ahead, the comparatively narrow space taken up by the folding feature may be readily seen. Another important feature is the four-blade observation plane’s engine, 16 June 1945. 80-G-47758
Navy scout seaplane, the SC-1 “Seahawk”. Folding wings are a new feature shown on its beaching gear; they occupy less space on board a ship, 16 June 1945. 80-G-47757
Under 600 Seahawks were built, all too late to see much combat in WWII. With a first flight in February 1944, they were the American answer to the fast (235-knot/273 mph) Japanese A6M2-N (Rufe) zero floatplane, which had proved a thorn in the side of the Navy from the Aleutians to the Philippines. As such, in addition to the standard scout/recon/artillery spotting/SAR duties tasked to floatplanes, Seahawk was to act as a pocket fighter-bomber when needed.
Heck, it even resembled the Rufe in profile as well as roles.
Japanese Nakajima A6M2-N type 2 Rufe floatplane fighter bomber ONI 1945
Navy scout seaplane, the SC-1 “Seahawk”. Pilot sits in a nearly designed type of “Green House” or cockpit, more streamlined into the contour of the seaplane. As the mighty engine “revs up,” the plane skims along the water for take-off, 15 June 1945. Of note, the first operational aircraft were assigned to USS Guam (CB 2) in October 1944. 80-G-47759
Armed with two forward-firing .50 cals and the ability to tote 650 pounds of ordnance (four times that of the Rufe), Seahawk could make 272 knots while loaded, climb to 20,000 feet in eight minutes, and had a 625 nm range. This was all because they used a variant of the famed Wright R-1820 Cyclone nine-cylinder single-row supercharged air-cooled radial engine, which was common across the Navy in the FM-2 Wildcat and SBD Dauntless (and later the easy-flying Cold War T-28 Trojan).
It would have been interesting to see how they would have fared against Japanese Kawanishi N1K Kyōfū (Allied code name “Rex”) floatplane fighters adapted from the N1K land-based fighter. They ran a beefy Nakajima Homare radial engine, producing around 1,800 horsepower, and were armed with two 20mm cannons and two 7.7mm machine guns.
Kawanishi N1K Kyōfū floatplane fighters (Rex)
USS Albany CA-123 Curtiss SC Seahawk floatplanes 1947. Note the advanced Curtiss SC Seahawk floatplanes, the last of the Navy’s “slingshot planes.” They retired in 1950. NH 94373
While they replaced the myriad of SOC-1 Seagull, Vought SO2U Kingfisher and the Curtiss SOC3 Seamew floatplanes in the Navy’s inventory, Seahwk would in turn quickly be retired by 1950, replaced by the much uglier but far easier to deploy Sikosrsky HO3S (H-5) helicopter, thus ending the Navy’s 38-year run with ship-launched floatplanes that started with the Curtiss A-1 Triad in 1912.
Heavy cruiser USS Albany with a Sikorsky HO3S-1 helicopter landing on her turret, Sept 1951