A look back at the Curtiss Seamew
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1st March 2021 Feature
Some couldn’t believe the design could even be accepted during such a crucial wartime stage. But what was so wrong with the Curtiss Seamew?
An all-too-often forgotten observation and patrol floatplane, the Curtiss Seamew was produced in abundance during the Second World War. Primary users of the aircraft were the United States Navy (who referred to the Seamew by the same name as its predecessor, the Seagull) and the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. Despite a considerable number of 795 being produced, the Seamew was not without its flaws, and even suffered two particularly serious ones as early as the same month that it entered service when it encountered inflight stability problems and problems with the unique Ranger air-cooled, inverted V-shaped inline engine.