The Design of Floats
This 1938 NACA technical report on seaplane float design, issued by the NASA Technical Reports Server collection, gives engineering data for engineers and designers working on aircraft floats. Its pages are dense graphs of resistance, trim and step performance plotted against speed ratio, with curves labelled by float model and a few hull plan and section drawings. A designer could take from them the restrained, data-driven graphic language of mid-century engineering charts: fine grid lines, clustered curves in distinct dash patterns, and small labelled hull profiles.
