I came across an old thread today with a similar title, which reminded me of a recent incident, maybe you northern pilots can relate to this. I was flying around last week looking for moose, came in and landed on glassy water at my home lake, went to put the water rudders down, but no joy, they were frozen in the up position. My thought was to go out on the float and break them loose, but after opening the door and looking at the ice covered float tops, re-thought that brilliant idea. The lake is almost all rock shoreline, but a mile away is a shallow-weedy area, so I headed for that, using the vertical rudder, with the plan of getting in shallow water before navigating the icy float deck. Luck was with me, I eventually created enough wave action to thaw out the water rudders before I made shallow water and then all was well. The bays are starting to freeze-up here, it is about time to put the floats away for the winter. We are switching the PA 12 over to skis today.

Steve

Had the elevator trim freeze up a few times flying winters with the Beaver on floats. Most time we were on the ocean and it was usually just warm enough that after a few minutes the water rudders would drop no prob. I think the engineer would give the cables an extra coating of grease too.

Frozen water rudders are nature's way of telling you that ski season is about to begin.....

When I flew in Kodiak, it was an occupational hazard most of the winter. And, dancing back aft to kick a water rudder is a "fun" little task. Always hoped nobody had a video camera.

MTV

Yup, I've had frozen water rudder cables too...also frozen trim tab on a Taylorcraft which was exciting. I put my plane away last week. The weather has been awfull anyway. Come on April.

I pulled mine out of the water Monday, by Friday the bay I keep it in was starting to harden up. Had a 1/2" of ice around the lift when I took that out Saturday. Bring on the snow!!

When i bought my maule 4 years ago, i was flying it back home and we got weathered out in Sioux Narrows, Ont. Next morning was around freezing, we took off and went to 4500 feet. When i got up there, i found my trim frozen, so i had to push like hell to keep it level. After the 20 min. flight, in the decent, the ice broke free and we took a nice nose dive. My air canada pilot passenger crapped his pants