No matter the landing area is lake, river or ocean, the flexibility of airplanes allows them to be utilized for a number of wide range of tasks. To support these features, there is wide variety of airplanes designed and one such type is sea plane and float plane. The main difference between the two planes is that, sea plane is one common category of planes and float plane is one type of sea plane.

Sea plane
Sea planes are the type of planes which can both take off from water and from land. In general, there are two categories of sea planes. One is boat plane and the other type is float plane. Sea planes were used since the beginning of 20 th century. The first launched sea plane took place in the year 1905. Since then, all types of sea planes are used throughout the world for a wide variety of functions and purposes.

Float plane:
It is one particular type of sea plane. Just like the sea plane, it can take off from land as well as water surface. These planes are attached with special types of floats or pontoons. These extra fittings allow them to float on water. Because of the attachment – pontoon, these planes are also called pontoon planes. These planes are in use since World War I. They were used to carry goods to safety islands for medics and food supplies.

Flying Boats:
These planes use pontoons attached to the fuselage to enable them to float on water. The use of huge hull provides buoyant force to float on water against gravity. The use of hull provides huge surface area, thus it can handle severe weather conditions such as high waves and tides during take-off and landing.
These boats are used for rescue mission, civilian and military purposes.