In my opinion, this version is more an exercise in style than a real commercial proposal. The seaplane at that time had already definitively lost the battle of long-haul commercial transport ... The big French flying boats as Laté 631 or SE.200 were totally obsolete after World War II ... even the most modern British Princess ... We can regret it because it was beautiful machines with a soul that probably does not have the current wide-body aircraft ...
That is fantastic. Like the Princess, though, its time had passed.
That is not what is said in Warbird Tech #24: the Model 37 Super Clipper was studied at the request of Pan Am.
One study, indeed, not one program to develop.... I have this excellent book.
Actually in this era there was no great difference in the estimated empty weight of flying boats and land airliners designed for long-range trans-oceanic routes. The key arguments against flying boats was that for point-to-point travel, say London to New York, they were fine but if transfer to another flight was required then you needed a conventional runway nearby. Not always feasible and an inevitable increase in facilities cost. On top of that if only one airline had flying boats in its fleet then the entire cost of these facilities; docks, service and patrol vessels, and so on, would have to be carried by them. On top of that you had higher service and maintenance costs and more. In Britain to-be BOAC, or at least most of the organisation, had reached this conclusion before the war but the constructors who specialised in flying boats lobbied hard. The Brabazon Committee were not convinced but the post-war government chose to give them a chance.
