Convair R3Y Tradewind: America's Last Great Flying Boat

Video from the channel Retro Transport about Convair, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 3:07. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

The video tells the story of the Convair R3Y Tradewind, a turboprop flying boat developed for the US Navy from a 1945 request to explore laminar-flow wings and turboprop propulsion. The XP5Y-1 prototype, with four Allison T40s and contra-rotating propellers, flew on April 18, 1950 and set a turboprop endurance record of 8 hours and 6 minutes.

Intended as a patrol aircraft, it was redesigned as a transport: the R3Y-1 flew on February 25, 1954 with a pressurized cabin for 103 passengers or 24 tons of cargo, and the R3Y-2 added a drop-down nose for beaching. Converted into a tanker, in September 1956 an R3Y-2 refueled four F9F Cougars simultaneously.

The unreliability of the T40s caused several accidents, and in 1958 the Navy cancelled the program after 13 aircraft had been built, which ended up scrapped. It was the last great flying boat of the US Navy.