...as in a man-made pond for floatplane ops.

I'm wondering how common these are. I've seen a few from the air, and wondering if anyone here owns one or uses one.

There are a few around Northern Utah but they were all built for waterskiers as far as I can tell. They usually have turn-arounds on both ends.

Wonder how long it would need to be to get an Aeronca on floats off at 5500 msl in the summer

Yee Haw... Whacking the water like that is a good way to break something. Ditches are fine till you get a good crosswind going. Or, you're a bit too heavy to get on step and misjudge how much water you have left in the pond to get stopped. Then life gets interesting.

I'm just saying, not that I'd ever learn something like that the hard way.

Gump

As in this video from the same guys...



Gump

That first landing WAS a bit rough, but he sure got in about as short as could be.

The attempted takeoff had me stomping on the brakes under my computer As I found out on skis this year, NO BRAKES WHATSOEVER is a real game changer!

"Lake Maule" behind BD's house in Moultrie comes to mind. They fly straight float maules into and out of there regularly.

TD

My base in Fairbanks is one, with a gravel strip alongside. Much longer though.

eey gods, so much looks like one of my "aint got the speed right" droppers at vines one day...u know, a little too slow, really didn't flare right, etc...!

Those two videos are giving the rest of us a bad rap. Got a friend on Vancouver Island that has a ditch just south of Tofino. May get a chance at it this summer. There will be NO video cameras in operation.

I think they need a longer ditch...

I have a shallow pond next to my strip. It was used as an ice pond for the rail road in the late 1800's. It is 400 feet wide by about 1600 feet long, but it dries up about 1 out of 3 years in the summer.

I had a contract with a local gravel company to put a dredge in it and go as deep as they wanted (and still leave a 3 to 1 slope) and go 3400 feet long x 400 feet wide.

That was when I had the other scout that I was rebuilding. The gravel company sold and the new company bailed on my pond idea. Then I sold the other scout, so probably will not happen now.

Those vids are the Peck brothers.They were a little anxious to try the new pond.Great guys and they have lots of float parts.

Check out my friend Doug Ronan's ditch http://www.dougronan.com/

Bill

On the hill to the west of Discovery Bay near Port Townsend, the late Cliff Larrance built a strip and a ditch. It is still there on the sectional. He passed away 8-10 years ago so I don't know who owns it now. I would fly over it and see a 180/185 and a T-craft on floats on the water alongside the 2500 ft grass strip.
He was a good guy. He owned some kind of heavy construction outfit so he had the machinery to do the job. He built a few hangars alongside his house there. He also had a Goose, Beech 18, and a Widgeon project. I don't think he flew the Goose off the pond, but if you knew Cliff you would not put it past him to try it. If memory serves me well, the T-Craft was from the old Kurtzers Flying Service on Lake Union. He was definitely old school. RIP.

Dave

The outfit that used to do SES ratings out of Imperial, CA used an irrigation ditch. Never could figure how you could do a SES rating that way, but....

Fairbanks International's pond is mostly man made, materials used to extend runways. North Pole (Bradley Sky Ranch) has a much smaller dredge pond used for floats, pretty much Cub only.

Lots of narrow/short places to land on floats when you start doing river/stream work. I've been on a bunch of them, Karluk River, Red River, Dog Salmon, etc, etc, on Kodiak and lots of small streams in the Interior of AK. They make you pay attention.

And, in Gump's old stomping ground (OTZ), the float pond is a ditch, strategically oriented about perpendicular to the prevailing winds....pretty long, but fairly narrow. Been in and out of there when the crosswind was about all I cared for.

Hardest part of all this stuff is getting turned around in a narrow spot, particularly one with a current and overhanging trees......

MTV

Dogsbody wrote:On the hill to the west of Discovery Bay near Port Townsend, the late Cliff Larrance built a strip and a ditch. It is still there on the sectional. He passed away 8-10 years ago so I don't know who owns it now. I would fly over it and see a 180/185 and a T-craft on floats on the water alongside the 2500 ft grass strip. ........

I live about 2 miles south of Cliff's strip (Olympic Field). His widow sold off some of the airplanes but she still owns the place. She lives elsewhere but I think their son Ryan still lives there.
Cliff's blue-n-yellow Goose came from Seattle Seaplanes, not sure about the T-Craft floatplanes (I think he had 2). He also had the 185 amphib you mentioned, a Chief floatplane, a Volmer homebuilt flying boat, & a bunch of airplanes on wheels. There's still some airplanes in the hangars but unfortunately there's no one flying off the strip anymore.
I was a passenger in a little homebuilt floatplane (Fisher Koala) in a flight off that ditch- took a couple tries to get it on the step and up & out of there. I got a bit spooked on one of the aborted attempts with the end coming up quick, but it's amazing how quick a floatplane slows down then you chop the throttle.

Eric

Good thing those boys got some spare parts... what with the landing technique they use. Gonna need them parts.

"Those vids are the Peck brothers.They were a little anxious to try the new pond.Great guys and they have lots of float parts".
Any of them parts straight?

Kenai, AK used to have a ditch for floatplanes. Fairbanks had a pond and the little airport next to FAI had a ditch.

DonC wrote:Fairbanks had a pond and the little airport next to FAI had a ditch.

Chena Marina, in the class D surface area My plane is there for an annual. Actually the ditch was just in the news last week, poor guy tried to make the last ice landing of the season and ended up wishing he had floats!

This video starts with a ditch then some mud...



Looks like fun to me