January 2024. With the deluge of rain in the UK, came the floods. Being on low ground next to the river, my club’s airstrip was submerged. Water was above the knee in places and swans, geese and ducks didn’t take long to splash in. Likewise, RC aviators donned floats on their planes and skated off the water.
Having never done this before, I couldn’t resist giving it a go. After all, my Durafly Tundra v.2 came with floats and they had never been used. So, the first thing was to remove the wheels and fit the floats. The manual is very clear on this and there are also some useful videos on YouTube, as the Tundra is a popular model. This was straightforward and I won’t cover it here. However, none of that info tells you how to fly from water, and crucially, how best to set up your floats. With hindsight, that’s probably a good thing, as it makes lessons learned ‘sink in’. As we all know, overcoming problems is part of the fun. And fun it was! It’s very liberating to have a big flat open “plain” to taxi about on (mind t’ ducks!).
In no particular order, here are things I’ve learned during this experience.
It’s loads of fun! I found myself taking off and really not being much bothered about flying as such. I was more interested in zooming about on the water, taking off and landing. For me, it was all about the water! In fact, the experience helped me to decide to finish off the boat I was building long ago...
The floats “stick” to the water. It’s a kind of suction that is hard to describe, but you can certainly feel it on the take off run as you feed in up elevator to get airborne. You also notice it on landings - the water almost grabs the plane as it touches down. I found it useful to have a tiny bit more speed on approach than I would with wheels to make the landing smooth.
The plane is less agile in the air because of the extra weight and drag of the floats. The Tundra manual actually suggests using a lighter, lower capacity battery to compensate.
Which brings me to my first major learning. I figured that the CG should be in its usual place on the wing, but it should also be about 1-2cm in front of the “step”. This is the right-angled transition on the bottom surface of the float. If the CG is too far forward, then more of the front portion of the floats stay in the water, making the forward tracking on taxi a bit unreliable - it can suddenly veer off to one side, and that happens seemingly at random.
When taking off, if there is anything not right about the “ground” run, then abandon the take off! So, if you start veering off and can’t get it back promptly and easily, just power down and stop. Go round and try again. Likewise, if a duck swims into your runway!
On the ground run, I found it useful to feed a little bit of up elevator to get the plane on to the step as you accelerate to take-off speed.
Whether it helps to toe-in the floats in a bit seems to be a point of discussion and debate. I’ve heard views both ways, and in the end, I haven’t tried it, but I think it is something I should try to see if it brings more stability to the ground run
Incidence. Tundra manual mentions using a bit of flap for take off. I tried it and it works, but I actually preferred the longer “ground” run fun with no flaps. I’m not really sure why, but I did.
Water is such a beautifully level surface and you can approach directly into wind whatever the wind direction. This makes it ideal for practising fully held-off landings. Here is not one of them:
Super important to think about how you would retrieve a stricken plane, e.g. in the event of a radio malfunction or crash. One of our club members has waterproof waders and very helpfully made multiple trips to retrieve planes. However, not everyone has a “Darth Wader” to rely on. So, think model boats, wellie boots, even a full size kayak or inflatable boat.
Have someone take photos and videos. With the reflections and ambience, it can be very scenic.
I hope these tips are helpful. Have to admit that I’m partly hoping that we’ll get more chances to fly off water this winter. I leave you with my favourite photo of the sessions we had out there - Darth Wader in action!
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