EdFred
Taxi to Parking
Monday I was forced to make a water landing. Of course it was preceeded by a water takeoff. 
Keeping with my tradition of never getting a flight review, but instead adding another rating of some sort, I decided to head up to Traverse City and fly with Tom Brady of Traverse Air in his 47 Piper Super Cruiser on EDO 2000 floats. I had only e-mailed with Tom on schedule and such until I was in town on Sunday evening and figured it was going to be a fun time when I called him and set up exactly when we'd be on the water Monday morning and he asked if I'd passed my written for the seaplane rating. I said nice try, but I know my part 61 pretty good, and he laughed about it.
Monday I show up, and it's cold and wind was about 7kts out of the north, so we stayed inside his lakefront cottage and talked a bit about operations and nuances, and pretty much rehashed what I had read in the supplement he mailed me a few weeks prior. As it started to warm up a little, not much, but a little, we went out and put some fuel in the plane, pumped the water out of the floats, and I climbed into the front seat. That was the hardest part of flying the plane, climbing in and out of that seat in front. I started up, we pushed away from the dock and taxied downwind. And guess what, no centerline to stay on. You do have to work the rudders more because the wind keeps trying to weathervane the plane into the wind. Once far enough downwind, kick in the left rudder, let the plane turn into the wind, pull up the water rudders, do the run up, and go.
Take offs and landings on a lake are much easier than hitting a strip of pavement or grass on land. There's no centerline to hold, there's no crosswind to worry about, it's just full power and a little rudder. You do lose visibility as you add full power and the nose comes up and the plane goes into the plow stage. But once you hit that, you push the nose over and you get on the step. The step is the equivalent of getting "on plane" with a boat, and you can really feel the hydrodynamic difference in AoA between the floats and the water. When the conditions are perfect - which is just very slight waves, or when the surface looks like scales on a fish you just massage the stick back and forth until you find the "sweet spot" on the step, and the plane will pretty much fly itself off the water, which it did. Once in the air it handles much different than a land plane. The floats accentuate every gust, magnify the need for rudder on every turn, and even when straight and level, I still felt like I was on Dancing with the Stars trying to keep it coordinated, because of the extra weight of the floats, and the yaw they generate.
After taking off we did some lake hopping and went through the three different takeoffs and landings (glassy water, normal, and rough water) you will have in a sea plane. Glassy water, while the smoothest and I think most fun is also the biggest runway, er waterway, hog because there's no waves to break up the surface tension of the water, and the lake will "hold" the plane down longer than the normal or rough water takeoffs. We flew for about 2 hours and then came back and beached the plane at Tom's cottage. I headed off to lunch, and came back in the afternoon for some more lake hopping, and this time sailing. Which is just floating the plane backwards across the water. The nose weather vanes into the wind, and you use the drag from the rudder and ailerons to point the tail where you want to go, just like tacking in a sailboat. Another 2 hours and I was done for the day.
Tuesday morning the winds has switched to the south which was good because with the way his dock is set up I got to dock the plane rather than beach it. Having some experience with boats and Sea-Doos this was a breeze, and Tom questioned whether or not I had my seaplane rating already because he said he couldn't do it any better than what I'd done. We went inside did all the paperwork, logbook signing and then I headed off into town because I had about 2-1/2 hours until the check ride.
The examiner shows up and we go through all the formalities of checking my medical and driver's license and doing the IACRA stuff, and then head out to the plane. The examiner was a great guy, and so laid back about the whole thing. I'm double checking the plane, re-bilging the floats and he says, "We'll just do the oral portion in the air between lakes if you don't mind." "Fine by me, I can talk and fly at the same time."
However, the ride did not start so well. Tom is on the west side of the lake and the wind was still out of the south. Which is great of finishing a flight, but not for starting one because the single door is on the "wrong" side of the plane in relation to the dock if you want to point the plane out into the lake to taxi away from shore. When Tom and I flew earlier in the day Tom held the plane on the end of the dock, parallel to shore, as I started it and we went off without a hitch. The examiner, however held the plane at about a 45° angle to the shore and was expecting the plane to weathervane into the wind after startup. Well, it didn't. So I had to kill the engine as we headed toward shore. The examiner was still on the float, and he rocked the plane back enough that it did weather vane into the wind and we at least had the nose pointed away from shore. Start the plane and away we go. After that...
Easiest. Check-ride. Ever.
The oral consisted of:
"What kind of fuel system do we have in the plane?"
"If we had to land on grass, how would you do it?" (We were not an
amphib - floats only)
"How can you tell which way the wind is blowing?"
"If you are planning a XC, how do you know where a seaplane base is?"
"What areas do you give more attention to on preflight in a seaplane vs a land plane?"
"Where can you land in the state of Michigan with a seaplane?"
6 takeoffs and landings later plus a docking (not quite as perfect as the one earlier in the day) I had a handshake, a signature in the logbook, and a white piece of paper saying I'm a commercial pilot with a seaplane rating. Oh yeah, since the CFI certificate only differentiates between single and multi, I'm legal to instruct in a SES now as well.
Seaplane flying is so fun it should be illegal.
Keeping with my tradition of never getting a flight review, but instead adding another rating of some sort, I decided to head up to Traverse City and fly with Tom Brady of Traverse Air in his 47 Piper Super Cruiser on EDO 2000 floats. I had only e-mailed with Tom on schedule and such until I was in town on Sunday evening and figured it was going to be a fun time when I called him and set up exactly when we'd be on the water Monday morning and he asked if I'd passed my written for the seaplane rating. I said nice try, but I know my part 61 pretty good, and he laughed about it.
Monday I show up, and it's cold and wind was about 7kts out of the north, so we stayed inside his lakefront cottage and talked a bit about operations and nuances, and pretty much rehashed what I had read in the supplement he mailed me a few weeks prior. As it started to warm up a little, not much, but a little, we went out and put some fuel in the plane, pumped the water out of the floats, and I climbed into the front seat. That was the hardest part of flying the plane, climbing in and out of that seat in front. I started up, we pushed away from the dock and taxied downwind. And guess what, no centerline to stay on. You do have to work the rudders more because the wind keeps trying to weathervane the plane into the wind. Once far enough downwind, kick in the left rudder, let the plane turn into the wind, pull up the water rudders, do the run up, and go.
Take offs and landings on a lake are much easier than hitting a strip of pavement or grass on land. There's no centerline to hold, there's no crosswind to worry about, it's just full power and a little rudder. You do lose visibility as you add full power and the nose comes up and the plane goes into the plow stage. But once you hit that, you push the nose over and you get on the step. The step is the equivalent of getting "on plane" with a boat, and you can really feel the hydrodynamic difference in AoA between the floats and the water. When the conditions are perfect - which is just very slight waves, or when the surface looks like scales on a fish you just massage the stick back and forth until you find the "sweet spot" on the step, and the plane will pretty much fly itself off the water, which it did. Once in the air it handles much different than a land plane. The floats accentuate every gust, magnify the need for rudder on every turn, and even when straight and level, I still felt like I was on Dancing with the Stars trying to keep it coordinated, because of the extra weight of the floats, and the yaw they generate.
After taking off we did some lake hopping and went through the three different takeoffs and landings (glassy water, normal, and rough water) you will have in a sea plane. Glassy water, while the smoothest and I think most fun is also the biggest runway, er waterway, hog because there's no waves to break up the surface tension of the water, and the lake will "hold" the plane down longer than the normal or rough water takeoffs. We flew for about 2 hours and then came back and beached the plane at Tom's cottage. I headed off to lunch, and came back in the afternoon for some more lake hopping, and this time sailing. Which is just floating the plane backwards across the water. The nose weather vanes into the wind, and you use the drag from the rudder and ailerons to point the tail where you want to go, just like tacking in a sailboat. Another 2 hours and I was done for the day.
Tuesday morning the winds has switched to the south which was good because with the way his dock is set up I got to dock the plane rather than beach it. Having some experience with boats and Sea-Doos this was a breeze, and Tom questioned whether or not I had my seaplane rating already because he said he couldn't do it any better than what I'd done. We went inside did all the paperwork, logbook signing and then I headed off into town because I had about 2-1/2 hours until the check ride.
The examiner shows up and we go through all the formalities of checking my medical and driver's license and doing the IACRA stuff, and then head out to the plane. The examiner was a great guy, and so laid back about the whole thing. I'm double checking the plane, re-bilging the floats and he says, "We'll just do the oral portion in the air between lakes if you don't mind." "Fine by me, I can talk and fly at the same time."
However, the ride did not start so well. Tom is on the west side of the lake and the wind was still out of the south. Which is great of finishing a flight, but not for starting one because the single door is on the "wrong" side of the plane in relation to the dock if you want to point the plane out into the lake to taxi away from shore. When Tom and I flew earlier in the day Tom held the plane on the end of the dock, parallel to shore, as I started it and we went off without a hitch. The examiner, however held the plane at about a 45° angle to the shore and was expecting the plane to weathervane into the wind after startup. Well, it didn't. So I had to kill the engine as we headed toward shore. The examiner was still on the float, and he rocked the plane back enough that it did weather vane into the wind and we at least had the nose pointed away from shore. Start the plane and away we go. After that...
Easiest. Check-ride. Ever.
The oral consisted of:
"What kind of fuel system do we have in the plane?"
"If we had to land on grass, how would you do it?" (We were not an
amphib - floats only)
"How can you tell which way the wind is blowing?"
"If you are planning a XC, how do you know where a seaplane base is?"
"What areas do you give more attention to on preflight in a seaplane vs a land plane?"
"Where can you land in the state of Michigan with a seaplane?"
6 takeoffs and landings later plus a docking (not quite as perfect as the one earlier in the day) I had a handshake, a signature in the logbook, and a white piece of paper saying I'm a commercial pilot with a seaplane rating. Oh yeah, since the CFI certificate only differentiates between single and multi, I'm legal to instruct in a SES now as well.
Seaplane flying is so fun it should be illegal.
