http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42471045
The world's largest amphibious aircraft, China's AG600, has made a successful one-hour maiden flight.
The plane, roughly the size of a Boeing 737 but with four turboprop engines, lifted off from Zhuhai airport in the southern province of Guangdong.
The plane can carry 50 people and can stay airborne for 12 hours.
It has firefighting and marine rescue duties but also military applications, which could be put to use in the disputed South China Sea region. The AG600, codenamed Kunlong, can reach the southernmost edge of China's territorial claims in the area.
State media Xinhua described the plane as "protector spirit of the sea, islands and reefs".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 25 2017, @10:54PM
When I lived in South Florida in the late 1970s, Chalk's Airlines [wikipedia.org] used Biscayne Bay[1] for takeoffs/landings.
ISTM that that avoided the cost of landing fees at MIA|Lauderdale|whatever.
(Mostly, they traveled to the Bahamas; during Prohibition, they were rum runners.)
That operation got its license yanked in 2007.
At the time, it was the oldest still-operating airline (since 1917).
[1] Not really a bay; a strait between the offshore islands and the mainland.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]