Throughout the 1920's and 30's, airfields around the world were a rarity. In those days - given the unreliability of engines, primitive instrumentation, and the scarcity of navigation aids - if you wanted to fly abroad in an airplane of any considerable size, you were wise to use one that could land on water. The brief but heady age of flying boats was born. The principal players were two airlines, Pan American Airways, and its British counterpart, Imperial Airways. These two companies pioneered the business of operating passenger air services overseas, and they did so with a panache that makes current air travel seem a humdrum affair by comparison. Just as the boats were seriously getting into business, the Second World War broke out. Consequently airfields were built in every part of the globe. Immediately after the war was over, the availability of hard runways, along with the accelerated wartime development of aircraft technology, combined to render flying boats obsolete.

Flying Boats, The J-Class Yachts of Aviation, is an attempt to bring to life something of the dash and glitter of making a journey in a boat that could fly. Marine artist Ian Marshall has rendered more than fifty watercolor paintings of flying boats and their ports-of-call.

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View the Exhibition Listing in text only.

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'Martin M-130 China Clipper'

'NC-4 at Horta'

'Curtiss F5-L'

'Short Singapore 1'

'Short S 8 Calcutta'

'Consolidated Commodore'

'Short S 17 Kent Scipio'

'Sikorsky S-40'

'Latécoère 300'

'Nassau, Bahama Islands'

'Sikorsky S-42, S-43, and S-40'

'Bréguet 530'

'Sikorsky S-38 Carnauba'

'Blériot 5190 Santos Dumont'

'Southampton Water'

'Sikorsky S-43s'

'Martin M-130'

'Sikorsky S-42B'

                   Flying Boats page 1, page 2, page 3