Emerald Air landing at Crosswind lake in Katmai. Everyone loves a wet beaver!

Had Falcon 50 pilots on board one day... they asked how hard it was to takeoff from the water in the Beaver.
I reached up and trimmed the elevator... and added takeoff power with my hands off the yoke. Only pilots were on board so no one got hinky about not touching the controls. The Beaver reared up and accelerated.... dropped down on to the step, eventually rotated on it's own and climbed out at 500 fpm. All without touching it. They agreed, it was a pretty harmonized seaplane. Nick

Gotta love crosswind lake. That place can be a floatplane three ring circus in the middle of fishing / bear viewing season. Yall are making me miss Alaska bad. Gotta head back up there next summer.

I found the Beaver easier than any of the Cessna's to handle on floats, in fact my chief pilot wanted me to have a few hundred hours on the Beaver before he'd let me at the handles on the 206. Of course you could still screw up if you tried, like Joe Hughes waving his stunt man union card to edge out the real floater pilots and demonstrating a landing at Lake Lovelywater near Squamish.

More recently there was an entertaining tv episode of Rick Mercer where he hams it up with a stoneboat (single Otter).http://www.cbc.ca/mercerreport/episodes/season-12/season-12-episode-1

Every time I see that video, I wonder, "how could an experienced pilot screw up that badly?" I have very little experience on floats, half a dozen landings 2 years ago in BC and however many landings I had during my training and SES checkride this past July, but none of them remotely felt like they were likely to end badly. From the experienced float drivers here, what is your take? It looks like mostly excessive touchdown speed to me, but is there something else I'm missing?

Cary

Cary wrote:Every time I see that video, I wonder, "how could an experienced pilot screw up that badly?" I have very little experience on floats, half a dozen landings 2 years ago in BC and however many landings I had during my training and SES checkride this past July, but none of them remotely felt like they were likely to end badly. From the experienced float drivers here, what is your take? It looks like mostly excessive touchdown speed to me, but is there something else I'm missing?

Cary

Cary,

Simple answer: He wasn't an experienced SEAPLANE pilot.

He touched down with the nose low, touching the forward portion of the float first, and one float before the other. The single float touching first, on glassy water (which is super draggy anyway) and far forward on the float, caused a hard yaw (which he didn't correct), and further nose down pitch, as the center of mass of the airplane continued forward, as the drag of the forward portion of the float slowed the float down. Then, the other float touched, also too far forward, and the yaw accelerated the other direction.

But, it all started from a much too low pitch attitude while landing on glassy water. Actually, after touching down that nose low on glassy water on one float, I'm not sure there was anything he could have done to save the day. Glassy water is sticky anyway, but if you look at the attitude the plane was in when he touched, he's REALLY nose low. That is a formula for disaster in any seaplane.

Even a Beaver.

Oh, and don't try Karmutzen's trick in a Beaver on 4580 amphibs.....

MTV

Isn't that the crash scene from Mother Lode?

Zzz wrote:Isn't that the crash scene from Mother Lode?

Yep.

MTV

Oh, and don't try Karmutzen's trick in a Beaver on 4580 amphibs.....

MTV

What trick? Though I was thoroughly spoiled with both straight and amphib Wipline 6000 on my Beavers. You couldn't load those to the rear spreader bar in the water and still get off.

The Mother Lode Beaver now...




http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Lode_(film)

Gump

Karmutzen wrote:

Oh, and don't try Karmutzen's trick in a Beaver on 4580 amphibs.....

MTV

What trick? Though I was thoroughly spoiled with both straight and amphib Wipline 6000 on my Beavers. You couldn't load those to the rear spreader bar in the water and still get off.

The "trick" I was referring to was your description of a "no pilot participation" takeoff, setting trim and power and letting the plane fly off the water.

My point was, yes, you were spoiled by those huge floats. And that's okay

MTV

GumpAir wrote:The Mother Lode Beaver now...




http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Lode_(film)

Gump

Man, I think I liked the paint scheme it wore in the movie better......

MTV

mtv wrote:

GumpAir wrote:The Mother Lode Beaver now...




http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Lode_(film)

Gump

Man, I think I liked the paint scheme it wore in the movie better......

MTV

I'd have to agree--that's a crappy paint scheme on a Beaver.

Cary

That thing has been for sale forever. I wonder if it has some left over structural issues from the crash.

Renegade wrote:That thing has been for sale forever. I wonder if it has some left over structural issues from the crash.

Nah, it's got to be the paint job!

Cary

Everyone loves a wet beaver!

On the other side of the spectrum, had a frozen Beaver once...

Took the family to AK a few years ago and we visited Katmai. We flew in two Stinsons out to Crosswind lake for a day trip. On departure, pilot had to hand prop the plane I was sitting right seat in. Walked up the pontoon on my side, reached in and set the mix and throttle, then briefed me. Couple of pulls and the engine caught and just as he said he would, he ran back behind the plane to cross to the other float. Except he had set the throttle too much and the plane started to taxi rather quickly. I pulled the throttle and waited and waited......Pilot finally climbs in looking like a drowned rat. Evidently he fell off while crossing but was able to grab a cross cable and hang on until the plane slowed, no doubt aided by the drag caused by his hippers. He was pretty quiet the rest of the day.

Sierra Victor, all float plane drivers have done it at least once.
I carried a spare set of clothes with the survival gear just in case. The last bath I took was in late fall at early dawn, 1/4 inch of ice on the lake and clear ice on the floats. Just woke up still half asleep, got out of the tent to pump the water out, immediate head first between the floats. Two rock hounds (geologists) on shore bustin their gut laughing. I made them wait two hours in the snow storm before picking them up at the end of the day. Had the last laugh.

I didn't beach the beaver very well on the backside of a slough, the wind was howling and the tide was running strong (sounds like a country song lyric). I had three folks going into camp on the plane, and four on the beach. I was trying my best to hold the beaver standing about knee deep in water when it got away from me, I watched as my plane and passengers started floating away.... I started chasing it and finally caught it when I was just to the point I would have needed to start swimming. I climbed up on the float looking like a drowned rat. Started the engine and this time hit the the beach like a landing craft at Normandy. You can do one of two things in a situation like that, make a joke or get mad. I made a bid deal of how much water came out of the hip waders and posed of photos. If I can't laugh at myself, I am missing one of the best shows in town.

Flash forward to after the end of that season, I am confessing the above story (at a bar of course) to one of my mentors up here. The guy has more than thirty years flying beavers on floats. So I am telling this story, and we are both laughing. But he is laughing a little more than the story merits, so I ask him what is up. He says when that happened to him, he had to get a boat because the beaver had floated out into the inlet.

The biggest learning curve with the beaver for me was figuring out How to Make: where the wind wanted the plane to go, where the current wanted the plane to go, and where I wanted the plane to go, all coincide at the same spot.

And lets not even go to the amount of stuffs gone kersplash from hands to water....

Wrenches, keys, wallets, cylinder assemblies, spark plugs.... Then comes the "do I dive or do I say f**k it" talk one has with one's self.

Gump