I am helping a friend identify the right airplane for his small pond. It is about 2000' long, and surrounded by houses and some trees. I've been there in a C-180, but would not want to do do that on a regular basis. He has a traveling airplane, so this would be just for fun, local flying. He has a son learning to fly.

It is in a suburban area, so noise is a factor. So far Seayreys, and Murphy Rebels have come up. Now I see a Rans S-6, specifically:
Rans S6ES on Amphibious Downwind Technology Shark Floats. 601 Hours TT, Rotax 912S 100HP engine

Can anyone offer some advice on these light seaplanes?

Thanks

Contact Emflys or Svanarts both are Rans gurus. From what I have seen they are great little airplanes. They use a fabric skin that is pulled over the structure and laced on. Instead of recovering it you just reskin it for something like 3 grand.

Guru is an excessively strong word. More like joker.

The S-6ES which you mention (and svanarts has) is a sewn cover version of the S-6S which is a traditional superflight/ceconite type shrunken dacron (like the S7). I don't have any personal float experience in the planes, but they are a great little performer and know several people who do operate them on floats, and they perform fantastic. You can't operate many airplanes for less money.

The Rotax 912S is a proven, smooth, efficient little engine perfectly suited for the plane. I have now close to 300hrs behind one and absolutely love it. It's a performer. Doesn't burn an ounce of oil, and once you learn the differences between it and the traditional lyc/cont. enginges - pretty low maintenance.

There is a yahoo group for Rans - ransflyers. As well as the Ransclan.com forum where you can get some first hand feedback.

I don't have any "on the water" experience but I think it would be a great little floatplane. Mine just jumps off the ground so I imagine that 2000' lake would be no big deal. On wheels I generally use less than 500 feet when landing and I haven't really learned how to land this thing slow yet.

Like Emmet says the S6ES has pull on dacron skins where the S6S uses traditional fabric methods. The dacron is actually thicker than the ceconite so can take just a little more abuse. Dacron doesn't have the sun protection that ceconite has so you have to make sure the seller adequately applied UV protection to it.

It's a great little plane, you'd love it!