Checkride

I arrived at 9 AM for a 10 AM checkride, feeling more nervous than I should have. That first hour allowed time to finish filling out the standard 8710 form and to preflight the plane. The plane had been ramped overnight for an oil change (which didn't happen due to rain) and it had been pushed back into the water before I arrived, a fact that would figure into the first 10 minutes of the test.

The wind had changed direction completely and was about 10 knots out of the north rather than 5 knots from the south as it had been for all my lessons. That meant we'd have a long taxi down the lake and then point back toward town and takeoff, leaving it to me to judge when we had enough distance to leave the water and clear the town. I discussed the distance with my instructor and resolved to be plenty conservative. We could talk sports or something while traveling downwind.

The examiner arrived right on time. We got through the paperwork, spoke a bit, and then hopped in the plane. The plane was docked pilot-side-to, so I got in last. I put the water-rudders down, fired it up, and we set off. We started a tight, right 360 and I discovered, to my dismay, that I couldn't push the left rudder pedal down to straighten out. The pedal was stuck as if there was a control lock on it. I pushed as hard as I could, but couldn't move it. By then we were pointing back at the dock, so I shut the engine down.

My instructor came down to see what was happening. "Is there a control lock on this thing?" I yelled, feeling a bit foolish. "No, apply some power!"

I started back up again and when we were pointing away from the dock applied power. The water pushed the rudders back to their straight positioin and everything was normal. Afterwards, I learned that when they'd pushed the plane back into the water from the ramp, the rudders had been pushed to a 90 degree position and the only way to straighten them out was with power. The rudder cables wouldn't do it.

That was not a great way to start a checkride, but I calmed myself down a bit and looked forward to a long taxi downwind. After a few minutes, the examiner suggested a step-taxi (which is part of the exam, anway.) I pulled the water-rudders up (finally, I figured those things out.) I got it up on the step and the plane immediately turned to the left - a combination of P-factor and weathervaning (and maybe not enough right-rudder, but who knows.) Anyway, the easy way to get things back under control is to kill the power, so I did that, the plane settled down, I put the water-rudders back down, and we continued to slow-taxi downwind.

After about five minutes (maybe ten) we turned around and looked at the town in the distance. I took off and was at about 500' over the town, so I guess I'd left plenty of room. The closer one gets to town, the more likely it is that boats will pop out of coves, so the extra space is a safety advantage for that reason too.

We climbed to 3100' and did a stall and steep turns. The right-turn wasn't all that great (it could have used more rudder), but I acknowledged that and we continued on.

We came back for a smooth-water landing, although the water was pretty rough. On that landing, I managed to skip the plane off the surface like a kid skips a stone and was back up to about 15' when I decided I didn't know what the plane was going to do next and I didn't want to find out, so I went around.

Now I was wondering what I'd been thinking when I decided to get this rating, but I resolved to stick it out. I knew I could land the thing; I just hoped I'd land it on the next try. Well, the next landing (smooth-water again) was fine, and the attitude was pretty good too. Then I took off again and came back for a normal landing.

Finally, we were almost done. I step-taxiied back, docked (which almost required a second attempt due to an off-dock wind and optomistically cutting the power early.) That was it. I passed!

Cemetery Approach

In Rangeley, they sometimes use an approach called the "cemetery Approach" (so named due to flight over a cemetery on final). The goal is to touch down in a cove with no risk of running in to the opposite shore. There's maybe a half mile of water, so landing there isn't particularly tight, but I don't know that there is enough water to take off in that distance.

This approach is useful when the wind is from the east. I did the approach and landing once, passing near a boat and touching down just after it. I was a bit concerned about landing with plenty of room to spare, but I setup the approach to pass just above the trees at the water's edge and the subsequent landing was no problem.

Sailing

Sometimes, it's just too windy to turn a float plane away from the wind to approach a dock or beach. In that case, just put it in reverse or travel sideways. Floatplanes naturally weathervane into the wind, and are so willing to do so that it can be hard to stop them from turning. In a strong wind, one uses weathervaning to advantage by pointing the plane into the wind, reducing power to idle, and then letting the plane be blown backwards. Speed up the process by holding the doors open, or steer by opening one door or the other or by using the water rudders. The keels on the floats help control direction so you can go backwards in one direction or another.

The plane can be induced to go sideways by using the engine to hold it in one spot against the wind and then by using a door or the rudders to angle the plane off wind. It will then travel sideways under engine power, but it won't go forward or backward if the throttle power matched the wind power.

We did a bit of sailing in a fairly light wind, but it was enough to get the idea.

After sailing, we docked twice. Once on my side and once on the passenger's side. When docking alone or on the pilot's side, the pilot has to be ready to get out of the plane, down on the float, and onto the dock without letting the plane blow away (especially if the plane is full of passengers). When docking on the passenger's side, it's a lot harder to see when the pontoon is going to touch and the passenger has to be capable of helping.

My dockings were generally good. Today, during docking practice, I hit the dock moderately hard and the plane bounced off the protective tires on the dock(my instructor snickered.) We had to wait a bit for the plane to blow back to the dock, but an on-shore wind helped a lot (otherwise, I'd have had to restart the engine.)

Some Personal Experiences

One one takeoff, I got the plane up on the step, waited for takeoff speed (or so I thought) and pulled back. The plane happily took off, flew about a foot, touched down with the back of the floats and then did the whole thing again. After repeating that oscillation six or eight times, my CFI told me to cut the power. "That was porpoising," he said. "Sometimes that happens, and the plane will do it all the way down the lake if you let it." I applied power and we had a perfectly normal takeoff.

The next day, my CFI took off once or twice to give me a break. On one of his takeoffs, we started porpoising. He played with the controls (pulled back a bit, rotated the yoke left and right) and we got off the water. I was interested to see that it happened to him, too. I used some of his techniques later to break the plane free.

We did a dead-stick landing. That was pretty simple - much like it is on land. We tried another dead-stick landing the next day. The water was flat, the sun was in our eyes, and the CFI called for an abort about 200' up because we couldn't tell where the water was. That was the best example I saw of glassy water - it was difficult to tell where the lake surface was in those hazy, glare-filled conditions.

One fun takeoff included a dog-leg around an island. It's pretty simple to include a turn in a takeoff run. Without enough rudder pressure in the early part of the run, the plane will turn to the left but it can be straightened out once speed picks up. Othertimes, there is a natural obstruction ahead but plenty of room to manuver around it during the takeoff run, as we did with the island.

Taxi Lessons

We worked on two techniques for traversing a lake. One is the step-taxi, where one travels across the lake at fairly high speeds. Get the plane up on the step, pull the power back to, say, 2200 RPM so it doesn't start flying, and cover ground fast. Turns are possible - a little rudder pressure will start the plane turning. For practice, we step-taxied around a fairly large island at the end of Rangeley lake. Keep the ailerons turned into the wind, as the centripital force will induce the plane to tilt toward the outside of the turn so keep the ailerons turned into the wind (particularly if the wind is coming from the inside of turn) to counter-act the leaning tendancy.

The other is a turning technique - basically a way to encourage the plane to turn downwind if all the plane wants to do is weathervane into the wind. This is the plow-turn, which is initiated by turning the plane to the right at idle power and then applying power while shoving the left pedal down (water rudders are down) and using the engine torque (P-factor) as well as the rudders to force the plane around. That's a useful technique for some situations.

Landing on the Lake

Flying a pattern in a float plane is pretty standard. Power back, don't forget the carb heat, 10 degrees flaps, turn base, more flaps, turn final, add all the flaps (40 degrees) on final and aim for the lake. Watch for boats!

Part of the challenge is figuring out where the wind is coming from so you can land into it. The ripples on the water offer one clue, although it's possible to be 180 degrees off. The ripples will be smoother on the downwind side of an island or the upwind shore. Flags can give a hint, as can the windsock at the seaplane base (although at Rangely the windsock is influenced pretty strongly by neighboring trees and structures.)

There are two tricks to landing on water. One is figuring out where the surface of the water is and the other is getting the attitude right. If there are ripples on the water, then gauging the plane's height above the surface is pretty easy. It's pretty much like landing on a runway. If the water is smooth, then one enters the realm of "smooth water landings", which involve nursing the plane down until the floats touch the water.

Attitude is always important. One does not want to land with the floats pointed down, lest they dig into the water and the world turns upside down. The landing attidue is pretty flat, with a slight upward bias. For rough water landings, the flare is similar to flaring over a runway. Pull the power off gently and pull back on the yoke as the plane starts to sink to the surface, then pull the power off and pull the yoke all the way back when the floats touch. Don't release pressure on the yoke, which is a natural tendency until the instructor expresses his opinion of that move.

Smooth water landings are a bit trickiet. The premise when landing on smooth water is that there is no way to tell where the surface of the water is. If you know the water well, you can land near shore (be wary of rocks) and use the shoreline as guidance from peripheral vision. Otherwise, if landing in the middle of a lake, set up a 150' per minute descent and wait for the floats to touch. The plane can travel pretty far down the lake (one of my attempts traveled way too far down a lake - it was a scenic trip but we covered seemingly miles before I got the floats to touch.)

Floatplane Lessons

It's hard to miss a lake. That's how I describe one difference between landing a float-plane and a wheeled-plane. Of course, landing on a lake also has the opportunity to convert an airplane into an inverted, submerged floatplane. That was one lesson my instructor of last week, Rob, made a point of hammering into me (when he wasn't busy pushing me to improve my water-handling and flying skills in many other ways.)

I started seaplane lessons last Monday at Lake Region Air in Rangeley, Maine and wrapped up with a checkride on Thursday. Those four days were a typical aviation learning experience, ranging from the satisfaction of learning new skills to the low-point of thinking I was getting worse instead of better.

I'd read up on float-plane theory before arriving in Rangeley, so I was fairly clear on the general concepts of safety, preflight, on-water handling, and takeoffs and landing. I'd also taken an hour of takeoff and landing lessons two years ago, so I'd had a bit of practical experience already.

For the first lesson, I got a brief overview of preflighting the plane (the primary difference from land planes is learning to pump the floats which, frankly, isn't all the that hard a concept.) The plane had been preflighted already, so we moved right into the cockpit and got started.

Somewhere early in the history of seaplanes, someone invented water rudders. These rudders, attached to the rear of the floats, use a highly-sophisticated (ie. brute force) series of cables to connect the water-rudders to the rudder pedals in the plane and to a diabolical lifting mechanism called a "handle". The rudders should be down for slow-speed taxiing around docks, expensive power boats, swimming loved-ones, and at times for control out on the water in reasonably strong winds. The water-rudders should be up for high-speed taxiing and for takeoffs and landing.

The trick is getting the rudders from the "down" to the "up" position. To do so, the pilot grabs the "handle" with the right hand and smoothly yanks it up, over in an arc, and snaps it down smartly over a 25-cent protruding tab located forward in the cockpit. The student-pilot, on the other hand, grabs the handle and lifts the rudders (and, seemingly, about 68 pounds of seaweed) part way out of the water before the entire assembly grinds to a halt and starts pulling the student's hand back to the starting position. After the student does that a few times the instructor grabs the handle, instantly raises the rudders and gets the lesson underway. That, at least, is what my experience was. (After three days of lessons, I pinned "Bubba" in the Greater-Rangeley Arm-Wrestling Pro-Am Classic but I still couldn't get the dang handle to snap over the tab.)

Having been acquainted with the water-rudder arm-strengthing apparatus, I set the altimeter to 1500 feet (lake altitude) and started her up. Once a seaplane engine starts, the plane starts moving so it is a good idea to plan ahead before firing it up. For one thing, remove all the mooring lines before starting the engine and, if neccessary (ie. if the wind isn't pinning the plane to the dock), hold the end of a dock line in the cockpit while starting the engine (use one hand to control the throttle, one hand to turn the key, and one hand to hold the rope - it's easy.) Once the engine starts, drop the rope and steer away from the dock (not that the plane moves away from the dock, since the floats will just drag along it, but it feels great to press that pedal down.)

Finally, we headed out to sea (the lake.) Lake Region Air is conveniently located in the center of City Cove, which has a fair amount of boat traffic so it's important to watch for boats (including canoes, kayaks, power boats, and jet skis). A water-bound seaplane is a vessel just like every other boat on the lake and follows the same right-of-way rules that apply to all the boat traffic. Unfortunately, some boaters haven't finished reading the right-of-way rules and can be unpredictable. Many Jet-Skiers, on the other hand, haven't even started reading the right-of-way rules and haven't thought through what happens when a engine-driven airplane propeller connects with a jet ski and its rider, so float-plane pilots have to be particularly vigilant.

Anyhow, now we're taxiing through City Cove, nary a boat in sight, and its time to do a runup. The runup sequence is the same as on land, except that one pulls back on the yoke so the plane plows through the water (and minimal spray hits the prop) while the engine is at 1700 RPM. The usual pre-takeoff checks apply (doors locked, belts on, carb heat off, flaps 20, etc.) and the water rudders need to be pulled up (so they don't get damaged.) Rob's maxim is "when the flaps go down the rudders go up."

Then apply power and take off! Well, it's a bit trickier than that. Apply full power (it goes without saying, at least for now, that the plane is pointing into the wind and the shores are distant), haul back on the yoke, and press the right-rudder pedal to the floor. The nose will go way up. Then relax the back pressure (or even push a bit) to get the nose down; when the nose goes down the floats should rise up onto the step (the step is the front part of the underside of the floats, which is where the plane rides when at high speeds on the water.)

Then the hunt for the "sweet-spot" starts. The sweet spot is where there is minimal drag on the floats and the plane accelerates the best. Find the sweet spot by pulling gently back on the floats until there's a bit more drag (I can't explain the feeling, but it is pretty obvious.) Then push forward a bit until either an increase in drag occurs or the instructor yells "Don't drop the nose!" and yanks the yoke back. Somewhere between those two attitudes lies the sweet spot. It's pretty easy to find after getting a bit of experience.

The downside to allowing the nose to drop too far is that the front of the floats will dig into the water, the plane will flip over, and it will be several weeks before you can complete the seaplane rating. Very few living instructors know just where that point is, and they tend to err on the conservative side so the land-bound chant of "more right-rudder" is extended to include "don't drop the nose!"

So now the plane is accelerating past 35 knots on it's way to about 40 or 45 knots and there's time to sit back, relax, and enjoy guiding a 165 HP powerboat-with-wings across a beautiful Maine lake. If you are lucky, you'll see a loon or two (the bird, not the jet-ski driver). After a while, if water conditions are right, the plane will start to feel like it's trying to fly. Then, simply apply a bit more back-pressure and the plane will gently leave the water and take to the air. When that happens, there is a brief feeling of acceleration as the plane leaves the water and the ride becomes much smoother.

If the water conditions aren't right, the plane will be perfectly happy to skim across the lake at about 45 or 50 knots with no inclination to break the wet, surly bonds. In that case, it's time to try one or two techniques. One is to yank the yoke back a bit, in an effort to break the plane free. Another is to use the ailerons to lift one pontoon from the water and then the other pontoon. I came to prefer the pontoon technique as it was a bit easier to tell if the plane was going to fly and it worked reliably.

In my first lesson, once the plane was flying, we climbed to about 3000 feet and did some airwork (steep turns and power-off stalls). The plane requires much more rudder than it would without pontoons, particularly in right-turns. Stalls were fairly standard, although the plane would happily drop a wing when the stall broke but appropriate use of rudder would pick the wing up. Most stalls were supposed to be to inception, but I let the first two go to the break and only lost about 100' in the process. Then Rob explained what he meant by "inception" and I cleaned up my act.

After a few minutes of airwork, it was time for landings! Rob pointed to the middle of Mooselookmeguntic lake ( I still can't pronounce it) and suggested a low pass to check it out. Down we went.