bbellfly

My Feedback: (2)

has anyone ever used or seen a trainer on floats. I have an Alpha 60 and am just learning to fly. I have thought about the possibility of putting it on floats after I get more proficient with my flying abilities. Any comments would be appreciated.

proptop

My Feedback: (8)

Sure...your trainer will be a good airplane to put floats on. I have a young student with an RCM Trainer 40 that we put floats on last summer, and it flew just as well...He really enjoyed doing touch and go's off the water, and now we are flying with floats off the snow.

You'll find as you spend a little more time here, that guys have put floats on just about any airplane you can imagine!

proptop

My Feedback: (8)

Just noticed...you're in Rome too! Huh, small world aye?! Bet you got warmer weather than we do right now! I'm gettin' an ice storm...

P.S. do you know Danny Mercer?

JimCasey

My Feedback: (1)

Trainers are great on floats. Probably the bestest floatplane ever is the Senior Kadet. I have a well-seasoned Senior Telemaster on floats and it works super well, too. Just don't let it get too heavy. Al the Senior Kadets and Sr Tele in my old club had foam-core floats thet are light and efficient. The built-up plywood floats might as well be cinderblocks, and the blow-molded floats are awful (except for the ones from Falcon Trading).
The floats should be about 75% of the fuselage length (Prop to rudder hingeline). Rig them parallel to the airplane centerline when looking from the top, with the step at or a little behind the balance point. ON A TRAINER, the top of the step can be parallelwith the flat bottom of the wing. Some (many) airplanes (My Telemaster) works well with the wing angle a bit more positive (nose up) than parallel.

You'll find that floats actually improve the aerobatic properties of a trainer. I think they act as inverted airfoils.

cf-drg

My Feedback: (1)

I learned to fly on floats... And I think it's a good way because you have (basically) 180 deg of runway... the lake... So you don't have to worry too much about lining it up with the runway... just point your plane into the wind, throttle back, and land.... It's a good way to practice landing, and the water is always SO much more forgiving than HARD HARD land...

proptop

My Feedback: (8)

There's an older guy in our club, and he's a lot less nervous flying off water than land...Only thing I don't like about flying off/over water is if you bonk it in, you might loose something forever...

Last year, annother buddy of mine was flying with his son, who is not an r/c pilot...
My buddy says to his son "give me some up trim" cuz it was diving badly, and guess what? Son pushes the elev. trim all the way "up" (foreward ) [X(] and airplane goes down, right into the lake! OOPS!

He gets to the scene and notices the nose is broken off, and now there's a YS 1.20 sittin' in the mud at the bottom of lake Delta...

Guess what I'm getting at is you probably should teather your engine to something that you know will stay floating just in case. And, make sure you seal things up nice in baggies, etc. and use silicone on your wing saddle...

fledermaus

I'm just in the process of building a pair of fibreglassed balsa floats (with aircraft ply in a few places for strength) for my LT-40. I'll post pix when they're done but one thing that I must say is that building your own is always better than buying pre-fab IMHO. A pair of floats is a great way to explore the intricacies of design and layout. I've built a bunch of kit planes, but these floats are the first time I've tried my hand at CAD and design and I've learned a whole lot from the experience.

Wine Country Flyer

My Feedback: (5)

Hey Jim Casey--John Reade-here--Wine Country Flyer--You mentioned Falcon Trading Floats. Just how good are they? I'm thinking about getting a pair for my Kadet LT 40. The formula (75%-80%) means they are a little short. 33 1/4" vesus 36", but Falcon says they will work on planes with 60" to 80" wing span. LT 40 falls right in the middle of that. I have Sea Commander 42" sport floats on my Four Star 60 and just love flying it on water, they work great, but the Sea Commanders are pretty heavy, 4lbs 11oz, for the set with mounts. The Falcons are only 11 oz. per float, (they say) so with mounting system they will come out a lot lighter and work good on an Lt 40, eh?
Whadayathink? Thanks in advance for any reply. John

seaplane

John, my wife's LT-40 is on my 34" foam core-balsa sheeted floats and they are a perfect match. My floats come out at 9 oz. each with nylon mounting blocks attached. These are pink foam covered with 1/16" balsa and hard points for mounting........Seaplane

jrf

My Feedback: (551)

John Reade:

I'm not Jim Casey, but I expect he'll tell you the same thing. The Falcon floats are among the very best in terms of on-water and in-air handling as well as durability. Don't worry about the length. The Falcons are wider than some of the other floats around and have plenty of flotation for your LT-40.

Jim

Turbobeaver

The problem with the Falcon Ready floats is that they lack an efficient anchoring point on the floats themselves.For lack of a better terminology they use nothing better than what looks like a drywall anchoring plugs inserted through holes predrilled in the ABS floats and glued in with epoxy.The core of these floats is merely white polystyrene.There is absolutely no structural integrity in this type of mounting system.The glue joint weakens eventually due to the stress and vibration of float takeoffs/landings and the plugs and screws will just tear right out of the float unexpectedlly.I can't tell you how many times I've been out flying with my friend and his Falcon Ready on floats and one(or both) of the float mounts decides to separate from the aircraft after takeoff,landing and even twice in flight.Those landings were not a pretty picture I tell you[:@].Sure makes for some spectacular blooper footage.I'll take my foamcore or built up floats over these any day of the week thanks.

flyer495th

I have two trainers that I started with and have put both of them on floats. One being a Butterfly and the other a LT 40. They are used for water in Spring thru Fall as well as snow in the Winter. Some people do not know what to do with there trainer and this is a great application for those planes.

Bob

jrf

My Feedback: (551)

Turbo:

I've never heard of this happening before. It sounds like he isn't gluing the brackets to the top of the floats. The brackets are supposed to be CA'd to the top of the float. The screws are just a back up. Also, the epoxy spreads out under the skin when you glue the screw anchors in. He must be tearing huge chunks of the top of the float off with the brackets. What in the world is he doing to those poor floats?

Jim

JimCasey

My Feedback: (1)

That is the first bad thing I have EVER read about Falcon floats.

Given a choice between Falcon floats or Seaplane's RTC Foam Core floats, I would take Seaplane's. Ralph (seaplane) has done a great job in his production of some really efficient floats. BUT if I wanted to fly TOMORROW and had a chance to grab some Falcon floats there would be a whooshing sound and they would be gone.

If I wanted to fly tomorrow and all I could find was those awful gray blow-molded floats heretofore unmentioned in this thread, I would just find honeydo's to do around the house. I won a funfly once and first place was a pair of those awful gray floats. Second prize was 2 pairs.

Turbobeaver

Hey Jim,I hear ya loud and clear on those @#%*$*& Gee B** floats.Oh God......don't get me started on them![:@]Been there.....done that........many years ago and I'm dam glad to leave that behind as a distant memory.

I don't know for sure how my friend has his plane assembled but he swears up and down that he put it together to the letter.All I know for sure is that ABS and most common epoxies are a mismatch to begin with.They make stick together for the short while but eventually the epoxy will scab off of the ABS surface and let go.The screws should be attaching to something a bit more substantial than a plastic plug glued into white foam.He is also always breaking the float mounting gear all the time to.Nothing is repairable and he's always having to order replacement parts to keep it flying.He will have himself well trained if he ever decides to take up R/C heli's down the road.They also order spare parts frequently from the local hobby shop as well.

The standard Falcon float spreader bar is also way too narrow tracking in my opinion also.They could have expanded it quite a bit wider to add to the stability of the model on the water and in cross wind situations.When flying the Falcon Ready,I also thought it was a good candidate for a ventral fin at the bottom rear as the turns are not co-ordinated in the air.Rudder control is also sluggish to useless at best in the air also.It needs more fin/rudder surface area to offset the area forward of the CG generated by that portion of the floats.A ventral fin would improve this condition considerably.At least it would track much straighter.

The Falcon floats are a very efficient design on the bottom side and they do plane well on the water and get up on step well.I'll admit that much for them but that's about as far as I'd go with that one.A good basic trainer and a pair of foam floats will out fly any of these ABS float planes.They look nice but in my honest opinion,there is no comparison between the two.Keep the wing loading down and the floatation factor up folks and you got a winner on your hands.

Oregon Craig

I learned the hard way about those Falcon mounts. I fixed mine by yes, CAing the plastic mounts to the top of the plastic float. Did this after I re-epoxied the little tubes in. Did a slight amount of scuffing of the 2 plastic surfaces before CAing them. Won't know until April when we hold our first float fly here in OR how well they will hold up. One thing I can say with ALMOST full certainty is that the instructions do NOT say to CA this point. I did it after they seperated as a fix. It makes good common sense, but I didn't think of it at the time. I hope they hold. They did work great on my UltraStick 40 with a 2 stroke 46, until they started to self destruct.

JimCasey

My Feedback: (1)

I am stunned to hear of problems with Falcon Floats. Never anything but rave reviews before.
I am also a BIG proponent of Urethane glue. I think it will help with the problems described. Scuff the mounting surfaces with some 80-grit, dampen them, and use Gorilla Glue to bond everything together. You can glue directly to styrofoam. Lighter than epoxy, stronger than whatever it's stuck to, and chemically compatible with everything I can name. (waterproof/fuelproof).

Spreader bars are not there to spread, they should more precisely be called anti-spreader bars.

I am also a big proponent of foam-core floats. I tooled up to make my own after being unable to get BJ floats anymore. Ralph (seaplane) makes very similar floats and sells them for much less than I could. Niagara, RnZ, FoamFloats.com are other places to get foamies.

red head

A comment about the Falcon float mount: If you score the plastic plug real good with a hobby knife then fill the hole with a good glue (I used epoxy on all 4 of mine) you shouldn't have any problems, I have been flying my Ready since they came out with it and I fly the heck out of my Cessna mostly touch and go's. When I first started wet flying the Ready I had one of the plugs come out and I'll admit it would make a great video' but I redid all the mounts the way I discribed and have not had any further problems and like I said I love doing touch and go's', if there is a problem it should have shown up by now. I'll also admit that some of those T&G's were not the kind you want others to see, but then there have been a lot that I still dream about.

Wine Country Flyer

My Feedback: (5)

Well that did it ! I'm ordering a pair of Falcon floats. Thanks for all the input, guys. You all talked me into 'em. I feel quite sure they'll work just fine. Thanks again--John Reade

red head

Jim Casey, if you are reading this section, I got in contact with the FFF today and spent about 2 hrs there. Did not fly but renewed some old friendships from 4 years ago. Hope to do some flying with them in the near future. Thanks again.

JimCasey

My Feedback: (1)

That's very gratifying, Redhead. When you go back let 'em know I miss hanging out there.

One cool game they play is "pass the transmitter". One guy fires up his airplane and goes over to the flightline with a pal or 2. First guy does a landing. Second guy gets the transmitter to see if he can land any better. ALternate every landing. When you see how that can teach you to drag the water rudder for 10 feet before your step touches and doesn't skip, you will appreciate the educational potential. Besides, it's about as much fun as you can have while fully dressed.