Seaplane (aerial refueling) tankers:

[shin_getter]

In the immediate post war era there were interest in improving the flying boats and seaplanes and a number of seaplane aerial refueling tankers were proposed, however they were not competitive with carrier and land aviation.

In a era where Carriers and airfields are at risk from missile strikes especially at closer ranges, perhaps it is a time to review this concept? As the Operation Black Buck have shown, demand for in flight refueling assets increases exponentially as required flying distance increases. With seaplanes that can refuel on the ocean surface, the number of airframes required for long range basing is greatly reduced. A seaplane on the ocean surface vulnerable, however using a "float upward" fuel tank from submarines, no other valuable asset need to risked. Such aircraft while vulnerable, is still far less so than say an aircraft carrier.

Has there been operational research on this concept published somewhere?

 

[riggerrob]

looks like Tradewind was designed as a multi-role transport to justify its huge expense.
Sadly, seaplanes need heavy hulls to survive landing in even moderate waves. Forget about landing them in open ocean. Seaplanes can really only operate consistently from protected lakes, harbours or atolls. Those heavy hulls mean that seaplane empty weights often double those of landplanes carrying the same cargo.
Tradewind would be handy for pre-positioning tankers ahead of a mission. A few days before a long-range raid, quietly send a few Tradewinds ahead to loiter in atolls. They take-off a few minutes before over-loaded bombers need to top-up fuel.

As an aside, the primary reason that Embraer call their latest transport KC-90 is to encourage smaller nations to buy them. Only a handful of large, wealthy nations (Russia, UK, USA) can afford dedicated fleets of tankers. Since smaller air forces can only afford small fleets, every air frame needs to be capable of flying two or three distinct missions.

 

[dan_inbox]

Huge flying boats are nice and dandy if all you need is a fair-weather Navy.
If you need something that works in the real world, they aren't it.

 

[shin_getter]

Bring Back the Seaplane - War on the Rocks

On December 8, 1941, Japan attacked the Philippines and destroyed nearly half of the U.S. Army Air Corps’ bombers along with a third of its fighters on

warontherocks.com

Sea-based tankers could provide a mobile air refueling capability resistant to adversary surveillance and targeting efforts. Instead of searching the approximately 300 bases in the Western Pacific capable of handling tankers (a relatively manageable problem for the Chinese military), adversaries would be forced to search thousands of square miles of ocean, beaches, lakes, and lagoons for seaplanes and their supporting tenders or onshore facilities.

Self evident ideas naturally grow everywhere? The article also points out the marine mission would now benefit from seaplane transports.

Longer ranges of modern aircraft also enables one to dodge weather if there are large number of support points.