Amphibian Aerospace Industries, an Australian company, says they are going to start manufacturing new Grumman “Albatross” flying boat amphibians. The Albatross was last manufactured in 1961, so it has been a little bit of a while, but the Albatross was a good, rugged design and sixty years have not seen many fundamental changes in amphibian design or technology. The G-111T will have turboprops rather than the original radial piston engines, and modernized avionics and such… but it’ll be made out of good ol’ aluminum rather than modern composites.

Resurrecting the Albatross: Why Australia is returning to a 70-year-old seaplane

I fully support this. Unless you’re flying extremely high, close to the speed of sound or trying for VTOL performance… civilian aircraft from the 1940’s and 1950’s remain perfectly valid design choices. Subsystems such as engines have certainly improved, but the overall designs have not improved by leaps and bounds. It’s not like the C-130 isn’t still in production…

Does AAI have the staff, funds, infrastructure to manufacture this sizable aircraft in a production line capacity? I have no idea. Won’t surprise me if they fall on their faces and nothing comes of it. But if they pull it off, I would kinda demand that the US Coast Guard, US Navy, USMC and SpaceX buy a bunch of ’em. Load them to the gills with anti-landing craft missiles and sell them in vast numbers to the Japanese, Taiwanese, Philippines, South Koreans. A new UK government could make considerable use of craft like this to take out the ongoing invasion flotilla. If need be, land next to the boats and rafts, scoop ’em up, fly ’em to Utah Beach.