jamesg33

Here's a pic of my Duelist on floats. Check out my post in the Twin Engine section for more pics.

Jim

Dragonjohn

My Feedback: (5)

NICE!

Bet it screams on take off!

jamesg33

The takeoffs are fast but not as fast as I figured they'd be. The plane has enough power that once you start pointing it skyward it just goes. An engine failure at that point would be very bad though! Landings are very fast, but it just skips along and does okay.

The floats make a big difference in the way the plane handles - it seems directionally unstable when I go in to a turn. I might try to add a ventral fin to improve that, which is something the float manufacturer said might be needed. The plane also has bad stall characteristics with the floats. It drops a wing fast and tries to spin.

Jim

Goinstraightup

My Feedback: (26)

Very nice Jim!

Are those the Goldberg Superfloats or the GP ones? I've had the Goldberg Superfloats on a 60 size low wing plane and I used the ventral fin with good success.

jamesg33

Thanks!

Here's another picture of it coming up on the beach.

They are the Great Planes floats. The support wires are modified so that the floats line up with the nacelles - mainly for looks but it also turned out to be practical too as the spray gets directed around each prop. The GP kit also supplied a ventral fin but I didn't have time to put it on - I was up till 2 in the morning the niight before our float fly trying to finish installation of the floats. The "duct" tape you see hanging below the aft fuselage was my feeble attempt to rig the water rudder cable while at the lake. Aint this hobby fun!

Jim

mscic-RCU

My Feedback: (6)

That is way cool, just awesome.

staggerwing

My Feedback: (5)

Can you describe how you mounted them? Did you build hardpoints into the wing?

Rich

jamesg33

Rich:

Sorry it took so long to reply - I was on vacation.

Here's a picture of the aft mount. I basically made a rectangular plywood piece that picks up the wing attach bolts. I mixed some epoxy with micro-balloons to make a putty that I put between the plywood and the wing (I put release agent on the wing first) so that it formed a nice conforming "saddle". The idea was to distribute the landing loads over the rear spar and wing attach hardpoints in the wing. The plastic clamps are then screwed to this saddle. Also, I changed the wing attach bolts to stainless steel instead of the nylon I normally use on this plane.

Jim

jamesg33

I removed the main gear retracts and replaced them with a rectangular piece of plywood that picks up the same hole pattern. The plastic clamps screw into it. It's important on this plane to have supports out on the wing like this to prevent movement of the nacelle/prop relative to the float (not much clearance between the prop and the float)

I haven't gotten around to covering the plywood with monokote yet. The black you see over the wheel wells is just that sticky back trim stuff. That entire area needs to be well sealed as it takes a lot of water splash.

Jim

jamesg33

The front mount was a little trickier. First I removed the nose gear strut and wheel. I then cut a 1/2' thick piece of balsa to snugly fill the aft portion of the wheel well hole. I then cut 2 rectangular pieces of 1/8' plywood and glued one to the 1/2" balsa. You can see this piece of plywood in the picture, covered with monokote and is what I screwed the plastic clamps to. The second piece of plywood goes inside the wheel well and is opposite the first piece of plywood. The 2 wood screws you see then "clamp" the whole thing together to hold it in place. The forward portion of the wheel well hole is then covered with the sticky back trim sheet.

My goal was to make this entire conversion without modifiying the plane (ie: no holes, permanently added parts etc) so that I could convert it back to it's original land plane configuration. It'll take me about an hour to convert the plane from one to the other.

Jim

flash over

The amazing thing guys, was as much as he talked about how differently the plane flew,you sure couldn't convince me.I've seen him fly it both ways, and it always looks great.

twinman

My Feedback: (2)

Twin engines........Now your talking!!!
Fantastic,
Twinman