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Wow!!!
Was this an ‘invite only’ deal or does he offer seaplane training to the masses?
Be really cool to fly a helio in So Cal on the ocean!
Sign me up!

Contact him, he does lessons for customers, well ones with money. Like anybody trying to eak out a living in aviation, "what, your going to pay me!"

Give him a ring, here is his link:

http://sandiegoseaplanes.com

No pictures of the young women? Haha. Sounds like a fun day.

A1Skinner wrote:No pictures of the young women?...

x 2.

Neat!!!! So does he use a lot of ACF-50 since that is pretty salty water?

The amount of post flight and monthly maintenance required to operate off salt water is huge. Corrosion, as you all remember is an electrochemical reaction. Water is a conductor of electricity, but salt water is an excellent conductor. All things like ACF-50 do is make a barrier, which can be breached. The Navy sent me to Corrosion Control School, those where the halcyon days, women, parties. Actually it was a very hands on school, utterly devoid of anything remotely interesting. One of the more effective barriers is something you mix up yourself. It is a mixture of paraffin, asphalt and dry cleaning solvent. You spray it on, let the solvent evaporate and it leaves behind a flexible waxy barrier on things like cables and such. It is also the origin of the "Dead Englishman Smell." However, things move on airplanes, it breaks the barrier making a corrosion cell.

My repair station used to overhaul Seaborne Airlines, a Twin Otter float operation in St Croix. Some of the aircraft needed $2 million overhauls. The ones in the Seychelles are sent at the end of their lives to run out the remaining cycles and then...beer cans for them. If you operate on salt, your aircraft will eventually disappear into crumbling white powder. You can extend this for a long time, but the salt will eventually win.

Mike does yeoman service maintaining his aircraft, but the salt is taking its toll. Parts for the Helio are mostly un-obtainium. Hartzell only builds that model prop on special order and needs an order of three to start. To make it worse, it is a geared engine, so the prop turns faster than my 206 for example, leading to more spray erosion on the blades. It is a totally cool aircraft, crank up the AOA and the "claws" extend from the leading edge with a pronounced thump and now you can fly in the 40 knot range. Not having a bunch of experience on geared engines, you need to keep them loaded up with a bit of RPM, so no pulling the power to nil, side slip and pre-planning rule. I think the engine choice was poor for the Helio, but is what made the Hp back when it was designed.

No pics of the ladies, I don't need to be "Uncle Creepy" and I left my phone onshore. Lots of in/out on the floats into the water training to beach the aircraft. With my luck, the phone would be in 40' of water now. However, the new dental floss styles bikinis leave little, ok nothing, to the imagination. It was rather like gifting rides at "Burning Man." They did smell better than the BM passengers.

Just a quick point of clarification. The prop on the Helio turn Slower (2170 prop RPM at 3400 engine RPM) at full power than anything comparable. The gearing slows the prop allowing a much longer blade and significantly more torque. Slower blade but closer to the water because it is so long. Don't fly floats so how does that affect water spray?

I think the engine is a really great mate to the airframe. The gearing and associated torque is a lot of what makes the plane. 1600+ lbs of thrust on a Helio at full power. Much more than a IO-520 mated to a 401 or a MT. Hard to find parts for expensive to operate, but WOW, it makes thrust!

Helio295 wrote:Just a quick point of clarification. The prop on the Helio turn Slower (2170 prop RPM at 3400 engine RPM) at full power than anything comparable. The gearing slows the prop allowing a much longer blade and significantly more torque. Slower blade but closer to the water because it is so long. Don't fly floats so how does that affect water spray?

I think the engine is a really great mate to the airframe. The gearing and associated torque is a lot of what makes the plane. 1600+ lbs of thrust on a Helio at full power. Much more than a IO-520 mated to a 401 or a MT. Hard to find parts for expensive to operate, but WOW, it makes thrust!

You gotta see what 2 of them on a light Widgeon does! It will pretty much beat anything off the water including a lot of "healthy" Super Cubs!

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dogpilot wrote:You are quite correct about he prop RPM. The blades are quite long and did seem to pick up quite a bit of spray, even with the spray extensions on the EDO floats. It was a bit loud with the engine turning at such high RPM. He was bemoaning the wear on the blades and the overall high price of blades. I have no idea if he has an STC restriction on prop selection with the EDO's. On mine, I am restricted to using the Hartzell vice the McCauley on floats. You really needed to keep the yoke in your belly to keep the spray down when taxiing at any speed. The EDO's seemed to not have very much reserve bouncy on that installation. Every time you his a swell you would get swirls of mist off the prop. I suppose they may be the only ones certified for that aircraft. All the data we used came out of the Air Force U10 manual, which had the float supplement. All considered, 4000 lbs on those floats seemed, to my unlearned eye, to be a bit small. This is the sum total of my actual flying floats. Aside from that, my experience it is all maintaining them and the aircraft.

From the photo, those are EDO 3500 amphibs. Those floats were based on the old EDO/Bristol 4000 straight float, and they provide a lot of buoyancy. That said, the position fore/aft can have a lot to do with how much water goes through the prop in taxi. Some manufacturers liked to mount the plane relatively far forward on the floats so that when you load the plane up (at aft CG) the thing balances better on the floats. Unfortunately, while that works loaded, when empty, it can be tough to keep the prop out of the water.

The Maule 7 series on Aqua floats comes to mind.....the front of those floats can submarine if you’re not paying attention when light.

But, those EDO 3500s are great floats.....but heavy.

MTV

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I once flew a heavily fueled C-206 on EDO 3500s of the water at a “fairly heavy” all up weight, picked up some folks off a boat that was sinking. I really didn’t think it’d fly, but if I could get on step, I’d drop them off at a village nearby.

But, after cruising along on step a while, it felt light on the floats......pitched up just a twitch and it flew! Back to town to drop off the unexpected, and finally got my job done. I was impressed. Great floats.

MTV