M.Hardy. Gliders & Sailplanes of the world

Partenavia Sea-Sky

  One of the very few water-based gliders, the Sea-Sky was designed and produced in the early 1960s by Partenavia of Naples, best known today for the P68B Victor light transport and its derivatives. The Sea-Sky was a small ДальшеMore>>> single-seater with the pilot seated in a single-step speedboat-like wooden semi-monocoque hull, with a small water rudder under the step, and the cantilever tail unit, of fabric-covered metal construction, carried on a steel tube tail boom. The tailplane is a one-piece all-moving surface, with a tab on the port trailing edge. The braced parasol wing is of constant chord and is carried on an inverted vee steel tube structure at the rear of the hull, with steel tube bracing struts at the sides; the wing is a two-spar wooden structure, fabric-covered, with plain fabric-covered wooden ailerons and small fixed floats at the squared-off wing tips. The pilot sits in an open cockpit and has an overhanging control column and conventional rudder bars; the Sea-Sky is designed to be towed behind a motor boat. It is, however, capable of free flight and the wings and tailplane can be easily removed for transport and storage.


Span: 24 ft 7in
Length: 20 ft 0 in
Height: 7 ft 3 in
Wing area: 121.1 sqft
Empty weight: 187 lb
Max weight: 375 lb
Min sinking speed: 4.90 ft/sec at 33.5 mph
Best glide ratio: 9:1