I'm terribly sorry to hear that you have lost two of your comrades. I also know the sadness these things bring.

Time does not heal, only nums.

Rick Wagner

I have had some e-mail traffic with a float vendor that I'll look up. Their only concern with the project was sufficient power to fly away.

I live near Clear Lake, South of Houston, and spent a wonderful afternoon performing splash and goes in a Lake Amphibian. I got hooked.

Caasi Moore
Hatz 777

"Go Doug"

LAST EDITED ON Aug-11-01 AT 07:23 AM (CST)

Randy Brooks

It has been a sad time for all of us. Doug would only want us to go ahead. We have a new man so give him your support.

Yes I have thought about floats being down here in ole okie the land with more shoreland longer than than Minn. We have a lot of COAST GUARD restriction on our lakes, so the floats must have wheels. But if I went that way I would need a new hangar as the door height is only 10 feet. I hope some one comes up with a good float installation. Remember the story by Richard Haliburton about his Waco on floats. (The Flying Carpet.) If you have never read it please do!!

I wonder if you could satify the requirement by having manually installable wheels for roll-around...(think Hughes 500 helicopter on skids...it has wheels.... you pull them out of the box, stick them into holes in the skids....crank'em down with a long lever (cheater bar) and lock them in the "down" position, and the chopper is lifted up off the skids onto the wheels. Then tilt back and start pushing...you could do this in the shallows...

I want to go the amphibious route anyway...docking this sucker with the lower wing would be a nightmare, so refueling would require basing on land. But still, scooting over to the lake for a splash or two will be a hoot...

Caasi Moore
#777

Cassi--I am sorry you did not understand the problem. We have to get special permission from Coast Guard to land on most of our lakes, so would need wheels for landing on regular airports for utility puposes.

I'm trying to layout two float implementation options: A "bolt it on" amphibious Zenair, or the like, two-float option, bolted to the fuselage, and a Grumman Duck style center float option with two outriggers on the lower wing.

I need to pick one option and go with it to finalize the wing implementation. If I hang two outrigger floats out under the N struts to balance the big center float, I need to modify the steel attach fittings in the wings to take the loads...and verify the expected loads in the spar...and you get the idea. If I go the bolt-on-the-fuselage two float option, I think the loads calculation will be simpler, and the float makers have more experience with this layout. Ultimately, I think that the winner will be the one with the lowest total weight gain.

If anybody has some suggestions...and some landing loads info...I sure could use it.

Caasi

Caasi--I think a single float would be out of this world. I might even enlarge the doors on hangar. This single float would provide space for retractable LDG.. iT WOULD LOOK LIKE A LOENING DUCK!!! Have at it, Why not?

I've played with solo float amphibious layouts that give me a conventional tail dragging config, like the Duck, and also unconventional configs with a main tire and tail wheel in the factory float, which would require having retractable wheels in the outriggers-- like the config for the U2. There are options for buying an amphibious float with the single main gear and tailwheel already engineered (tell me that THAT's not a plus....), so I'd only have to configure some relatively lightly loaded outrigger gear. The wheels used in in-line skates are pretty robust, and with the correct crank ratios, a couple of electric car window regulators would crank them up and down for a known weight penalty.. If they failed in the up position, land on the water, or into the wind on a grass field. I flew a Schweitzer K-8 (single place sailplane), and got pretty good at landing on the one wheel, and rolling to a stop, staying balanced. Then a puff of breeze would knock me of balance and it would set down on a wingtip.

Now, if I'm going to put landing loads up into the lower wing spars....I gotta do the math.

I've obviously have spent two much time dreaming about this..

Keep the forum alive. Thanks to Doug for making this possible, and to Thayer for keeping it going.

Caasi

Caasi--I think the single float is it. It would extend out under the prop. with stryfoam floats inline with interplane struts with a v-shape support built and attached to both lower spars and into the float for a hinge for bringing out rigger into trail position. Since float is stryfoam covered with thin fiber glass the knuckle could be up in middle of float to clear the water. The float should should clear the water by a good margin and the out rigger wheel would only need to extend slightly to keep float off ground. Your skate wheel would work. Use mono wheel and brake mounted to retract up into main float well with a standard retractable tail wheel. It would be clean. Keep it going!!

Randy Brooks

Caasi--Look in KITPLANES magazine August 2001 and they have a single flost amphib which is an ultra lite. Might give you an idea

I have several pictures, but I can't remember how to upload them.

Lyman

Lyman

Lyman

Thanks for the pictures! Looks like fun!

Lyman

Lyman

Nick