Can a sea plane break the sound barrier?
While there’s no fundamental reason why not, a number of issues have so far prevented an sea plane officially recording a speed greater than Mach 1 – basically, the presence of floats, etc. is an aerodynamic hindrance that tends to hamper high speed flight. However, the Convair Sea Dart [model YF2Y-1] did exceed the speed of sound on August 3rd, 1954 – this was in a shallow dive, rather than level flight, which is why it is not the “official” record. That is held by the Soviet Beriev M-10 sea plane [codenamed ‘Mallow’ in the West], which reached 567 mph (911 km/h) on 7 August 1961. The Sea Dart was a single seat, delta-wing jet fighter, originally developed for operating in forward areas without need of a land base or aircraft carrier, and featured retractable hydro-skis for takeoff and landing. The program was cancelled in 1957, but a YF2Y-1 craft can be seen today at the San Diego Aerospace Museum.
