Panamarenko
(c)image: SMAK, Dirk Pauwels
The imposing flying boat Scotch Gambit is linked with the dirigible The Aeromodeller, as both devices were conceived as mobile homes, in which to travel around freely. Although the flying boat was not finally completed until 1999, the project first cropped up in Panamarenko’s work at an early stage. The first known drawing dates from 1966, and a large drawing from 1970 already lists all the details for the construction of an Aeroship Speedboat, as the project
was initially called.
Panamarenko changed the name to Scotch Gambit in the early 1970s. It was only in 1990, however, that he produced
his first scale model. The flying boat became an armoured vessel, made of stainless steel plates. Scotch Gambit is sixteen metres long, six high and nine wide. It is designed to reach a speed of a hundred kilometres per hour, to
which end it is fitted with twin air-cooled, six-cylinder, 370 Lycomming aircraft engines. The hull is supported by eight canoe-shaped floats, fixed to the body in pairs via insect-like legs. The cabin is not in the water, but hovers elegantly nine metres above the surface. There is an opening at the back of the hull, with two large flap doors providing access to the ship.
The inside walls are covered with eiderdowns and there is a steering mechanism that has to be operated standing up. The mighty flying boat was the centrepiece at the opening of the brand-new SMAK museum in Ghent in 1999. The plan to give it a permanent mooring at the Bonaparte Dock in Antwerp was blocked politically. Waterway safety was cited once again, as it had been in the case of the submarine ΠAHAMA Nova Zemblaya.