Flying boats

One of the most impressive ground effect plane/boats:

The 'Caspian Sea Monster,' a Lun-class Ekranoplan, rises from the grave | CNN

Caspian Sea Monster - Wikipedia

Lun-class ekranoplan - Wikipedia

 

Once electric motors and lightweight batteries evolve just a little further this is going to be an interesting sector... Though I suppose the need to float on water or have a runway to get enough speed to get lift is way more expensive and a greater hassles than building a plane with a drone design to go straight up and then once you achieve the max altitude you could mostly glide with very little prop power required to get to your destination. As in a hybrid plane-copter:

 

I just bought a nice amphibian model for my favorite flight sim, been having fun learning how it handles.

Makes it easier to fish for duck.

 

meh.
Seaplanes are a solution struggling furiously for a problem to solve.
See also: Gas bags.

The reason that we stopped using them is because aircraft developed to the point where they were mechanically reliable enough and had enough range to make it to a proper airport with divert fields along the way.
There are still niche applications for seaplanes, and I too used to watch them with envy during the year I was forced by dot.gov to live in Seattle, but the landings........it's always the landings with them.

There will be a developmental period while we transition from eVTOLs to eSTOLs to e-fixed wing when 'phibs might look a little better perhaps, but trust me!
You can only shove water out of your way a little bit under ideal conditions AND it still doesn't compress worth a crap.
...AND ground transportation after the landing is a bit more complicated.
....AND lighted buoys are a LOT more expensive to maintain than runway lights.

It's only flying when the number of takeoffs = landings you can WALK away from, hopefully without wrecking the aircraft too badly in the process.

If I'm wrong and they do scale up - you can probably find some cheap floor space for an assembly line in Renton pretty soon......

 

For fun:

And:

Bob Wilson

 

Ryse Aerotech - Seize The Opportunity in Flight


Ryse has been doing some interesting things with what? hexi-copters?
My Spidey-senses tell me that there's 6x more failure potential with the part that converts it from a half million dollar erector-set into something that doesn't quite 'fly.'
As Musk would say, the best part is no part.

BUT - a motor failure means that you only lose a little less than 17% of your lift/thrust - not entirely......irrational.
Robbie can probably manage the part about keeping the squishy part properly oriented.

Aviation development from kites through warped wings to jets and turbo-props followed a somewhat logical if blood soaked path using existing tech.
UAS (drone) development leans towards quads, hexi, and octo-copters - probably for a fairly good reason, so it's logical to presume that UAS will make the leap into PAS (Unpersoned to Personed)

It will eliminate the need in part for all of those pesky runways and lights, but in return will generate MUCH MUCH more complicated aerial charts.

Time, money, and human blood will tell.......

 

When accounting for symmetry and balance, a quad-copter with a single motor-propeller failure has effectively lost ~50% of its lift, because the opposite prop can't contribute meaningful lift without flipping over the craft. As the count rises above 4, contingency options greatly increase.

 

I do not have a Part 107 license only because I haven't managed to find time to take the test at a government facility (for free.)
BUT!!!
I have more than a few hours in UAVs.

I have flown a UAV that's pitched a prop blade in mid flight and .....it tumbled out of the air unglamorously.
HOWEVER (comma!!!)
I'm 'told' that hexis or octos can 'do the math.'

Personally?
I'm aging out of the MAV thing.
CREWED Aerial Vehicles for the DEI absolutists.

This is because UNLIKE less demanding jobs (like being a POTUS) one has to pass a physical and meet certain cognitive norms before getting a license to 'slip the surly bonds' as an operator, and RIDING aboard a personal MAV is beyond my economic abilities at any rate.
History, money and blood lean away from seaplanes.
If crewed aircraft make the leap from direct carbon to stored indirect carbon they're likely to go the route that's being blazed by UAVs.

Or?
They will be stillborn and we will find something else.

Sails to steam....