Silly question about small seaplanes

Great-looking machine.

I often wonder just how overly-concerned we are at sea and in the air today, when such liberties seem to have been taken without thought for the consequences by earlier generations, albeit during a deadly and vital world war.

I guess we don't hear much about instances when boats and planes held together with hope and baling wire, went down.
 
Hello everyone - from a yachtsmen who turned to flying and has come back to yachting but still does some flying! What an interesting thread.

Some of you might be interested to know that its is not frighteningly hard to obtain a private pilot's license. I think these days there are seven multiple choice exams; with some gentle evening studies the theory can be covered in a few months and includes navigation, met., human performance and limitations, air law, radiotelephony, aircraft systems. The flying in reality involves around 50 hours of instruction and solo flying culminating in a cross country solo and a dual flight test. You also need a medical. Once passed you can fly just about anything with one engine, although a little extra training is required if the under carriage goes up and down, the prop. wobbles, it has a tail wheel or advanced avionics.

and coming back to sea planes - well they are one of the differences that require a little more training after which you add a seaplane rating to your licence. Flying seaplanes is really do different from any other light aircraft, but the landings are very different. Here the similarities with sailing become even more apparent and you need to have a good appreciation of how the wind will effect the aircraft (when landing there is no longer a wind sock, a runway or tower to give you any indication of the strength and direction of the wind) and as the aircraft slows down it rapidly turns into a yacht but with even less control than a yacht.

As to the why they are so rare in the UK the problems start with access to water. In England just about all the inland waterways are in one form or another privately owned - getting permission to land is all but impossible. Moreoever there are inevitably those who think any light aircraft are a noisy nuisance to the commnunity and should be banned. Sea landings present other problems. In reality light sea planes are not designed to land on a swell of any significance and having landed there is little point unless there are suitable facilites at which to moore. Aluminium (of the type used in aircraft) and salt are not happy bed fellows so most owners would not want to land on salt water too often.

The beauty of Scotland is that most of the lochs are publically owned and most can be accessed by a sea plane. All of a sudden a world of truly spectacular wonder is opened to pilots with the rating and access to a sea plane. I have landed on a few lochs and cherish the experience.

Owning a seaplane in Scotland is a complicated affair fraught with far far greater issues than owning even a substantial yacht. Interestingly most seaplanes can land on both conventional runways or water. One possibility is therefore to keep your seaplane at an airport but there arent that many airports in Scotland. It also rather defeats the object and so ideally you would keep your seaplane on a loch. However seaplanes dont like living a permanent existance exposed to the elements so you need a loch with a large shed on the shore or at least a protected area with a suitable ramp up which you can "motor" said seaplane. Most seaplanes run on Avgas - which is effectively leaded petrol - it is illegal to use "ordinary" petrol and would damage the engine. You therefore must factor in either carring your own supply of fuel or making sure you always have enough to get to an airport with Avgas. Finally while in some respects seaplanes are robust they are also easily and potentially vunerable to serious damage. Landing on a loch miles form anywhere and damaging a float on underwaters rocks (easily done) will ruin your day.

Oh and for those interested you might well "pick up" a seaplane in the States for £40K and pay up to £300 or £400K for a brand new four seater, reckon on £10K - £15K for your licence, and £10K for insurance and maintenance a year. Unfortunately it is not a cheap "hobby" but equally no more expensive than owning a reasonable yacht.
 
Dancrane,

I'll still winge at you, have a look at 'The Lonely Sea And The Sky' to see an example of pushing one's luck - or employing near superhuman skills & endurance.

However I've flown in small aircraft a lot as a photographer, and though I love it ( I feel very uneasy in things like airliners where if the pilot conks out, as has happened to me in a Cessna, I / we would be stuffed ) but I still think it's quite a dangerous pastime, quite frankly I've always felt the statistics about flying being safer than driving are rather carefully massaged in real terms.

Lots of small private aircraft have accidents even today, but many don't even make the local news; and surprisingly, since leaving BAe I've come across some outfits which made my toes curl when I saw their procedures or lack thereof, even in the UK.

Definitely not something to do on a shoestring !
 
Cheers. But I didn't have it in mind to begin flying, at any level. Except maybe the hovercraft eckranoplan. Sawing wood is more likely for me, than soaring overhead. I'm not sure your reports of half-hearted safety precautions on the part of operators, will encourage new fliers very much!

I'll certainly read Francis Chichester though. Sounds like a brilliant combination of tough determination, intelligent resourcefulness, and just enough craziness to stay ahead of what was considered possible.
 
Dan,

one thing, the Ekranoplan isn't a hovercraft, it's a 'ground effect vehicle', and goes at a fair old rate, I think the big Russian ship-knobbling ones were good for well over 250 knots; on some models some of the jet engines - it had lots - at the front were angled down say 30 degrees to give lift as well as drive, but they have to get going quite fast to get the ground effect.

One of the Top Gear guys, James May, tried out a small civilian one a little while ago in one of his own programmes; they still didn't explain how it's supposed to dodge anything in the way !

Here we are;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch2zs-7je_s
 
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That one you found looks like it goes a lot higher, which must be far more practical, though whether it's practical enough seems dubious; I'd think one really, really doesn't want to dig in a wingtip on turns !

It would be nice to have the ability to pull up say 20 - 30' in emergency to avoid things, even if it semi-stalled the thing; when I cadged a ride in a microlight a while ago the field used was very short, with a barbed wire fence at throat level then the harbour wall; the pilot had to lift off to get over the fence, stall, then drop about 15' to the harbour to regain flying speed, the tide was out...Have been in small aircraft doing that several times, not something to make a habit of but it's nice to have a Plan B.
 
Paul Murton and his filmcrew used the Glasgow/Oban seaplane mentioned earlier to fly to Otter Ferry in July 2011 for a future travel programme. We happened to be ashore for dinner, with our Vega on a mooring in the background of some of the pics.

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Ash
 
Watching Mr Bond visiting Scaramanga on his island (ITV4). And I recently saw Edward Woodward visiting Lord Summerisle...

...interesting thing...whenever anyone goes to visit Christopher Lee in films, they always go by seaplane!

And either it or they come to a burning hot sticky end...:D:rolleyes:
 
Britt really was spectacular, wasn't she? The most ludicrously inept secret service agent imaginable, but absolutely perfect.

I spent the last hour watching her in her bikini, me grinning like a twit. I do everytime the film is on. SWMBO's begining to object.

Now I think of it, Ms Eckland was in The Wicker Man too, capering nakedly to drive seaplane-cop Woodward out of his mind.

These seaplane-flyers obviously get all the gals...:rolleyes:

Oh my god, it's true! What about The Edge, 1997, where Tony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin crash their seaplane in Alaska, or some chilly, woody place full of bears? ...and, who are they both hoping to hump? Only Elle McPherson!

I gotta get a flying license. It's obviously a license to ladykill. :D
 
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I gotta get a flying license. It's obviously a license to ladykill.

That's what pilots would have you believe; in aviation circles it's a standing joke about pilots in bars, first there's the huge wristwatch, and " did I mention I'm a pilot ? " about every 2 minutes.

In my experience the most attractive thing to girls about pilots is an airline salary, though I think it's a ghastly high pressure demanding & rather unrewarding way to fly.

Saying " I have a yacht " gets a flicker of interest, but the girlies are thinking of lying on deck in a bikini drinking Pimms like a Duran Duran video, so the eyes tend to glaze over when they're offered a pot noodle, Ocean waterproofs and a safety harness...
 
Good grief, Christopher Lee's back, on Film4 right now, as some sort of 'untrustworthy dago' (obviously rehearsal for Scaramanga) in Captain Horatio Hornblower.

I was going to ask here, is the film any good? Inexplicably, I somehow wanted to call him Captain Lorelei Leafblower. :rolleyes:
 
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