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.