Quote:
Originally Posted by RogerBW
Moving away from hard data, Cats have a reputation for solidity and reliability whereas the various Short flying-boats don't; on the other hand in the real world there are three surviving Sandringhams out of 51, none flyable but that's about 6%, versus 80 surviving Cats including 20 flyable out of 3305, about 2.5%.
(And of course if you want spare parts for a Cat now it has the advantage that there are 19 other flying Cats out there and that's enough to make it worth someone's while to build them.)
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The Sunderlands seemed to be pretty reliable and quite robust. As for their take-off runs, on a dead clam day sometimes they needed someone to take a motor boat out and make some wake to allow them to unstick. Other times 'maximum takeoff weight' was just a guideline if you had a long enough run available.