I just a email from the Datum snow ski guy, Jean-Marc, he has taken on production and sales of a new float that looks pretty cool. He is capitalizing on his production capabilities and brand awareness of the skis, a smart guy and I hope he sells a lot of them. Not enough water around SE Idaho to make me buy a set, darn it. Here's an excerpt from his email, (and his English is much better then my French) a bit long, but probably too short for a float pilot:

"On another note, I wanted you to know that I am now manufacturer of fantastic floats system for planes like yours.
A friend of mine bought the SHARK FLOATS company.
He turned around and made the floats way better and lighter with some technics from out of this world.
All kind of new composite and impregnation technics that make a hell of a difference when it comes to weight and strength.
I know that there are a lot of those technics being described on the net these days but there is nothing close to this that I know off yet.
The guy spend three years of research and development to make the best of the best.
All computer designed, lab tested and real life tested right after.
As you probably know by now most of those companies selling floats and skis and equipment are bragging about numbers they cannot prove as they come up with all kinds of excuses once it is discovered that their floats are way heavier than they claimed.
'Well... the weight was without rigging and the accessories are adding to the total''. Some will go as far as mixing the exchange weight with the actual weight to make believe
that their floats are lighter than they really are.
Well, I can tell you that I have a brand new set of those fairly new float here and they are fantastic and very light.
For a 1600series we get 190lb total with everything on them....On the plane
And this is amphibious!
Three sets are already flying with very impressive results.
Comments are like;'' Can't feel the floats on the plane'' or ''7 seconds for takeoff ????'',
And this from some very famous test pilots from the Ottawa river and others from British Columbia, out west Canada. "

I thought they were the old "Shark" brand as soon as I saw the picture. Hopefully he improved them as I never heard a lot of good reviews on the original Shark floats. Honestly never heard a lot of bad either, but they always seemed 'flat' to me. Mike will hopefully respond and say it better than I can. In otherwords, they look like they would only be good in light chop/rippled water conditions. Not a float expert by any means, but rough water seems to require a deeper or more pronounced 'V'.

Hope he does well with the fliats and are offered at a reasonable price. Not many makers of floats to fit smaller aircraft. Legend, Pk, Full Lotus, Floats CZ and maybe Aerocet, are the only ones that I can think of right now that make a smaller amphibious float. Full Lotus is probably the cheapest, with the remaining ones priced $40K and up.

Do you know what the rated buoyancy is? Hard to tell much by those photos, but it looks like reserve buoyancy is going to be pretty low..... Would be interesting to see better pictures of the gear as well.

Interesting, in any case, especially if he can keep the weight where he's claiming it is, because even at that, you're likely looking at a single seat airplane on these LSAs.

MTV

WWhunter wrote:Legend, Pk, Full Lotus, Floats CZ and maybe Aerocet, are the only ones that I can think of right now that make a smaller amphibious float. Full Lotus is probably the cheapest, with the remaining ones priced $40K and up.

Puddle Jumper? Are they still in business?

Clamar.I think their smallest is a 1500, seems appropriate for the S7.

Those look like they evolved out of the old Sealord floats from my Ultralight days in the early 80’s.

Kurt