|
|||||
Hot Mic
SponsorsBloggers in Arms
BlogrollContinuous WavePaid to BlogReciprocating Engines
Smarter'n MeWingmen
|
One More Thing for the “To Do” ListPut a float plane down in Victoria Harbor, BC, GWU. It all depends on stick work of course, but I feel the Beaver is a little harder to ground loop when you’ve got her in the water. What? 26 comments to One More Thing for the “To Do” List |
Credo"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones "Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra" "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche "A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke "Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas "Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex Relocating? SponsorsNearly 60k hits and 130k page views per month - low rates! Advertise with Lex! Stinkin' Badges
For the Effort!Recent PostsPopularPagesTags1st Amendment afghanistan Araby army Blogging buffoonery china culture economy education Flying Friday Musings geopol GWOT Headlines History iran iraq Israel issues media Memory Lane Military Navy norks Oz pakistan people piracy politicians politics Politics and Culture pundits Russia seals sea stories silliness Small Stuff SoCal technology UAVs UK usaf usmc weapons WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck requires Flash Player 9 or better. Spam Blocked |
|||
|
Copyright © 2009 Neptunus Lex - All Rights Reserved |
|||||
There’s a float plane ramp at lake como on the italian side of the lake. I highly recommend trying it there too.
Just make sure you have the wheels up when doing a water landing or you will loop very unexpectedly.
Oh Yeah,
Waterwork is fun. Night, instrument, and glassy water landings, full stall landings, circling take-offs, making a buoy, liferaft and survivor pickup, high speed taxi on the step, etc. I loved the old Grumman Albtross. Logged over 80 water landings before they discontinued it. HQ said it wasn’t necessary since we had helicopters with water hulls and floats. Now we don’t even have those.
Albatross. Heh…
That WAS a great plans. Sorts like a PBY on steroids. Never got to fly in one, but always admired ‘em.
Respects,
After soloing at 14 (38 years ago), I decided to get a single engine seaplane rating at Brown’s Seaplane Base in 2006.
http://www.gate.net/~seaplane/index.htm
If you like flying in a Piper Cub with no electrical system, I highly recommend this weekend of flying on floats in central Florida.
The Saturday morning ground school was about an hour then we flew, me in the back, the instructor up front. The stick is back……alot during take-off and landing and all water maneuvers. DON’T forget the water rudders and CARB checklist.
You will learn that boats have the right of way, several new seaplane related terms and be able to name about 10 parts of the float along with getting recurrent on the physics of powered craft on the water.
Two flights on Saturday, emergency procedures, high speed, slow speed, reduced drag, upwind, “on the step”, one flight on Sunday morning then the checkride.
Sunday afternoon they signed me off with a new Single Engine Seaplane rating. That new rating also qualifies as a bi-annual.
Best $1700 I ever spent.
Navy never should have gotten out of the seaplane business.
As a ute, visiting VBC, it was always fun to watch the Twin Otter’s coming in to the harbor, dodging various small craft and the Princess Marguerite. Sadly, I never could find a good excuse to fly in there.
It all depends on stick work of course, but I feel the Beaver is a little harder to ground loop when you’ve got her in the water.
Heh. So says you. Just takes practice.
oldskydog/
When I was in ROTC in the early 60s I was told by one of my instructors that there are three totally unique sounds that when you hear ‘em you know EXACTLY what kind of bird it is before you even see it. One is the metallic squeal of the breaks of a C-124; one the whine of a T-37 Tweetybird, and the other the thrashing sound of the engines of an Albatross–an ungodly sound that sounds as if the engine is throwing itself apart. Sure enough as a young USAF 1lt at DaNang years later I was on the flight-line one day and heard this UNGODLY sound–although I’d never personally seen or heard one before, I knew even before I turned around what it was–and sure enough,
there it was in all it’s threshing machine glory, making it’s way down the ramp to the taxi-way. What a sound!–all you SA-16 drivers have GOT to have SERIOUS hearing problems!
One of my dearest close-personals flew the duration of WW-II in OS2-U Kingfishers. Home plate was four-stacker cruisers– never did a carrier trap. After quite a few launches he always ended-up being hoisted back aboard.
CDR(ret) Sandy, now in his mid-eighties, is an avid skiier, and still talks pretty well with his hands. Hopefully, we’ll get a presentation out of him on WW-II cruiser flight-ops next month.
He just loved his Kingfishers while young, and and Stoofs a bit later in life, and everythign in between.
Virgil:
You missed the unique sound of the J-57 in the A-3D, Whale. nothing quite like it. Funny how the sound of a jet engine can transport us to a previous time when we were young, and handsome, and virile. Oh well, I’m still good looking.
Hey! Didn’t we stop for high tea at the Empress on this flight. If you missed it, you missed a significant part of Victoria BC. The provincial museum is great too.
Oy. You all need to get out more ;~P
High Tea at the Empress, yes. Also, they have a fine selection of Single Malts at the Bengal Room. Plus, the Canadian Dollar Discount is back.
“the left wheel is up, the right wheel is up for a water landing, flaps are down …”
I got to watch the the SA-16 do their thing several times in the summer of 65. The best one was in close to the beach. The pilot had fouled the plugs on the port engine during the pick up. There was a mortar tube shooting at them, we shot up the beach but never found the tube. The A/C put his mech out on the wing, took off the cowling and proceeded to remove and dry the plugs. All the while taxing as fast as possible on one engine out to sea. It all worked out. We figured the guy they picked up must have really been scared you know what less.
Funny thing about the video is that I’ve been in that exact spot behind the pilot up in Alaska. Loads of fun! Taxiing on the step is like being in a jet ski with wings.
And now for engine sounds:
F-404’s inbound for the break will get your attention.
F-110’s in the Tomcat going over the top in a loop causing that reverb thing on the ground.
Oh, and who could ever forget the single stage blowers on the J-85 and the J-57? Catch somebody unawares on that one, and they’d have an embarrassing moment!
And, yeah, HF6, we all probably do need to get out a bit more…any suggestions?
Ah, now you guys got me thinking about Granville Island…and a sailing trip over to Vic Harbor. Okay, yeah, I could do one or both of those.
If ever in Vancouver, B.C. it’s well worthwhile to visit the Flying Beaver Bar & Grill near the international airport (YVR).
In addition to fine brew, great groceries, and a warm and friendly atmosphere, the delightful added attraction is the frequent, if not constant coming and goings of Beavers, Otters, and other floatplanes on the water just outside. Since the restaurant is co-located with the floatplane terminal for Harbour Air and others, it is vicariously the next best thing to flying/floating into the bush on floats.
Most of what I remember about Vancouver is that the the honest bars close ridiculously early and the voice of the Canadian security guard at the pier shouting at us, “shut up you lot in the back! Your friend is in enough trouble!”
Mongo ~ I hear Hawaii is nice this time of year.
Landing is the easiest part. What’s tricky is docking a single-engine float plane with a fixed pitch prop and no starter. To begin with, there are no brakes, per se, and the propeller is always producing some thrust. (Yes, you can shut the engine down but failure to get close enough on that approach means getting out on the float and hand propping from behind – introducing a whole new set of ways to fail, including drifting onto the rocks.)
Rudder control power approaches negligible compared to the tendency to weather vane into the wind. It will also drift with the wind, not to mention the current. As a result, you have to use all of the flight controls to sail an ungainly watercraft, just like in a Super Hornet only without a computer to translate your wishes into suitable control surface movement.
I can’t recommend it too highly. One of the best weeks of my life was spent getting a single engine sea endorsement.
“What’s tricky is docking a single-engine float plane with a fixed pitch prop and no starter. To begin with, there are no brakes, per se, and the propeller is always producing some thrust.”
Its hard enough with two engines, one has got to be a real challenge. As far as controlling the thrust, we would “blip” the engines as necessary..that is, switch the mags off with the master switch momentarily. Obviously the trick is to turn “em back on before they totally quit, but you get the feel for it pretty quick.
Time for my one and only flying story, then. My brothers and I contracted with Bud and Jim’s Canoe Canada out of Atikokan, Ont. for a fishing trip. Four of us piled into a DeHaviland Beaver that according to the plate above the door was built in 1952. The interior had seen better days. Some of the amenities were missing, but the pilot had solved his personal issues thereof by pop-riveting the bottom half of a Budweiser can on the inside of the door for an ash tray.
Being the heaviest passenger I got to sit in the front seat next to the pilot. We taxied down the lake for takeoff. It’s amazing how quickly the end of the lake seemed to come up before we left the water, and how tall the trees there seemed to be. I have to admit that it was rather interesting to fly in an airplane where you can stick your hand out the window in flight. But the most remarkable part of the flight was when the pilot grabbed his log sheets, mumbled around his cigarette “Here, I’ve got to fill these out, just hold it steady” and flipped the wheel over to me.
My hands held the plane steady, about 2000 feet above the trees I figure. Other parts of my body threatened to loosen up spectacularly. The running commentary of bull from my brothers ever since we had taken off died out in shocked silence. “Can I pull it up a bit?” “Sure, go ahead.” I didn’t have the guts to actually turn the wheel. After a bit he said “O.K.” and I swung it back. Thus ended my flying career.
About 20 minutes later our intrepid pilot was looking around for the lake we were to land on. “Ah, there it is.” Over on the right. At which point he just about stood the plane over on it’s right wing tip to make his turn. The guys told me that I just about climbed up in the pilot’s seat. The problem was that a) the window was open and b) I didn’t quite trust the seat belt.
Fun was had, though. I was looking for the same seat on the flight out, but there were fewer thrills.
An alternate view of the same approach (turbine Otter, not Beaver, of course.)
http://tinyurl.com/5bs5ms
My first floatplane experience was in a tandem-seat biplane. Owner kneeled in front facing aft and told me what to do. Take off and landing under high tension lines was interesting. I was never the same after that, and soon had my rating thanks to the folks at Kenmore Air.
More floatplanes, for those who care at http://gallery.mac.com/tomharnish#100461
And the huge Martin Mars flying boat at
http://tinyurl.com/2wq79t
That was Atikokan Aero about 10 years ago. Went back there about 3 years ago. A little less excitement on the way out, but I did get the T-shirt and wear it proudly.
[...] Lex has video of landing a float plane in Victoria Harbor, British Columbia. (That’s in [...]