While so much for "simple" yikes I guess I'll need a Plan B

A marine railway might be great, but it might be hard to fly in to a remote site......as I thought the OP suggested.

You do NOT have to approach a well designed ramp at speed. As BRD noted, as you approach the ramp at low idle taxi, just before contact, with full up elevator, add a burst of power (doesn’t need to be big power) to “stick” the plane on the ramp.

Which is one of the beauties of ramps.....you don’t have to shut down and drift up like you do with a dock. Makes arrivals a LOT safer and easier in a wind.

As I noted earlier, tp park turn the plane around so it faces out. Yard it up the ramp as far as practical (no need to bust a nut), and tie it down. Think about this: the front of those floats are meant to cut through waves. Point them into the waves.

This also levels the wing or slight negative angle so it rides wind better.

Tie downs: Put in good ones, and don’t worry about it.

Now, if you’re thinking of parking the plane on a wide open shore of a big lake with a lot of fetch....nether a ramp or a dock is going to work well.

A plane at a floating dock in big waves is going to be banging against that dock constantly, and working on lines. And, with plane floating, if water comes over stern pump outs, it can sink.

Floats fill up on ramp, just pump em out. Bring lunch.

I came to the city dock in Kodiak one early morn. My Beaver was on one of the ramps there (think about that-Kodiak, very stormy, uses ramps). Night before there’d been a gorgeous Beaver tied to the dock. It was gone in the AM.

Hmmmm, I live on the channel, and I didn’t hear him leave......oh shit, the dock lines are still there. Sunk, tied to dock. Snow overnight weighed down the tail and floats filled.

I like ramps.

MTV

Scott, how do you handle a wake from a passing boat or some storm-driven waves?

The plane slides up the ramp so that it is about 3-4” higher than it would be if it were floating. This is a huge amount of displacement and the plane firmly sits on the ramp with just about any wave size I experience at lake hood. My slip is right on the east west water lane and I get a lot of wake action from passing planes. The largest of wakes might cause the plane to rock tail to nose, but it is simply rocking along the keel. The only time I have noticed this was in combination with a rise in water level.


Does your plane get pushed up the ramp further?
No. Occasionally the water level will rise due to rain and the plane will float and I have to re-tie, but this is predictable.

If so, do you have to regularly re-tie it? Only after days of heavy rain and the water level changes.

My concern is the plane getting pushed up the ramp by some waves, making the lines loose, then the wind rotating the plane around the loose lines.

I tie the plane to my dock in 4 locations. Bow Cleat, forward rigging, aft rigging, and aft cleat. I am able to aim and slide up the ramp within 3-6” of the fenders on my dock so if the plane floats, it is just like as if it were tied to a dock and floating with slightly loose ropes. No big issue.. I have couple fenders tied to the dock between the dock and the floats and it is a non issue. My dock sits on the bottom of the lake.

Contrary to MTV’s suggestion, I park my plane with the nose towards shore. I do this for a few reasons.
1. I am nosed into prevailing strong winds.
2. If I tail in, my tail hangs over the shoreline and the kids that cut the grass near my plane have to climbed under the tail with their weed hackers and lawn mowers. That scares me.
3. I prefer to have the weight of the plane sitting on more of the keel..
4. I usually depart my dock full and this gives me the opportunity to load a float compartment, spin the plane heel up and load the other float, and depart.
5. When I refuel, the hose reaches the plane easier when nosed in.

Hope this helps. I love my ramp.. it works way better than I ever thought it would.

Hsivany wrote:Scott, how do you handle a wake from a passing boat or some storm-driven waves?

The plane slides up the ramp so that it is about 3-4” higher than it would be if it were floating. This is a huge amount of displacement and the plane firmly sits on the ramp with just about any wave size I experience at lake hood. My slip is right on the east west water lane and I get a lot of wake action from passing planes. The largest of wakes might cause the plane to rock tail to nose, but it is simply rocking along the keel. The only time I have noticed this was in combination with a rise in water level.


Does your plane get pushed up the ramp further?
No. Occasionally the water level will rise due to rain and the plane will float and I have to re-tie, but this is predictable.

If so, do you have to regularly re-tie it? Only after days of heavy rain and the water level changes.

My concern is the plane getting pushed up the ramp by some waves, making the lines loose, then the wind rotating the plane around the loose lines.

I tie the plane to my dock in 4 locations. Bow Cleat, forward rigging, aft rigging, and aft cleat. I am able to aim and slide up the ramp within 3-6” of the fenders on my dock so if the plane floats, it is just like as if it were tied to a dock and floating with slightly loose ropes. No big issue.. I have couple fenders tied to the dock between the dock and the floats and it is a non issue. My dock sits on the bottom of the lake.

Contrary to MTV’s suggestion, I park my plane with the nose towards shore. I do this for a few reasons.
1. I am nosed into prevailing strong winds.
2. If I tail in, my tail hangs over the shoreline and the kids that cut the grass near my plane have to climbed under the tail with their weed hackers and lawn mowers. That scares me.
3. I prefer to have the weight of the plane sitting on more of the keel..
4. I usually depart my dock full and this gives me the opportunity to load a float compartment, spin the plane heel up and load the other float, and depart.
5. When I refuel, the hose reaches the plane easier when nosed in.

Hope this helps. I love my ramp.. it works way better than I ever thought it would.

Good assessment, and as usual, there are always compelling reasons to operate one way or another, prevailing winds being one. The only thing I really don't like about being nosed in is if you get a big wind from the other way, your tail feathers are out there, and there's no way to secure them with control locks. But, if it's sheltered from that wind, or that direction of wind just dosen't happen.....

As you say, a ramp is pure magic compared to a dock operationally. And, a ramp in the middle of a U shaped dock is near perfection.

MTV

mtv wrote:As you say, a ramp is pure magic compared to a dock operationally. And, a ramp in the middle of a U shaped dock is near perfection.

MTV

Makes good sense. My plan is to build the ramp a few feet wider than necessary to accommodate newbie errors then reduce the width and add a U shape dock around it after the fact when I'm able to put the plane exactly where I want it each time.

Scott, thanks for the comments. I think I have a good plan now.

Spent the weekend with a good buddy, felling trees and moving rocks. I think it turned out pretty good but I won't know for sure until I get up there with the plane. Ended up sinking it by building a crib out of a broken ladder, attaching it to the outboard end, and stacking some rock in the crib.

albravo wrote:Spent the weekend with a good buddy, felling trees and moving rocks. I think it turned out pretty good but I won't know for sure until I get up there with the plane. Ended up sinking it by building a crib out of a broken ladder, attaching it to the outboard end, and stacking some rock in the crib.

Looks good! Don’t be afraid to push up a bit of power just prior to touching the ramp. That, with yoke/stick full back, will push a bow wave ahead of the floats, and allow the floats to slide further up on the ramp, then settle and stick.

Enjoy it, looks like a beautiful spot!

MTV

Lots of good suggestions on this old post for building a ramp. It looks like the OP's ramp turned out great. One suggestion that I didn't see is that a lot of docks or ramps can be very easily built on the ice in the spring and then they're in place when the ice goes out. The ice gives a nice, level platform to work from and the weather can be quite nice in the spring while the ice still provides a great platform to work on.

pipeliner wrote:Lots of good suggestions on this old post for building a ramp. It looks like the OP's ramp turned out great. One suggestion that I didn't see is that a lot of docks or ramps can be very easily built on the ice in the spring and then they're in place when the ice goes out. The ice gives a nice, level platform to work from and the weather can be quite nice in the spring while the ice still provides a great platform to work on.

That’s true IF the ice as it’s going out doesn’t remove or destroy your ramp during breakup. Even with fairly protected areas, a bit of wind can move ice with amazing power, and do a lot of damage.

So, know your ice out conditions well before you go this route. And have a boat handy in spring so you can go find your ramp and tow it home.

MTV

Good point, Mike. I did this when I built a floating dock at our cabin and just tied it off to shore and it worked great. Our lake can be subjected to some serious winds, but as long as it is tied off it works great. The floating dock is connected to shore by a 4' wide walkway that is connected to the floating dock on one end and the shore on the other. For the first several years, I did not have a good structural connection at the floating dock to walkway end and ice-out usually broke the connection. After a few years of this, I got serious and beefed up that connection and haven't had a problem since. The floating dock is still tied off to the shore and it has been that way for 30 years now even though I know the winds hammer it from time to time. The lake is not far from the Copper and Chitina Rivers and I'm sure you're familiar with the kind of winds that those river valleys generate.