RCU Forums - Lake Michigan float flying

Hi guys,

I thought I would post a little video my son took of me float flying off Lake Michigan a week ago. My family and I had an opportunity to spend a week vacationing at a cottage right on the beach and I was able to make room to pack my float plane along. I was blessed with a couple of very rare nearly calm days on the big lake and was able to do a bit of float flying. This has to have been one of the most enjoyable times I have had float flying, and I have been float flying since the mid 70's. Must have been the great location.

The plane is a 3dhobbyshop.com EBT (electric basic trainer) on seaplanesupply.com 30" flat bottom floats. Power is provided by an Extreme Flight Torque 2818-900 motor, Hobbywing 40amp sbec esc, GensAce 3s/2600 lipo packs, and Hitec HS-65HB servos. I have put over 140+ flights on the EBT all on floats and the only modification I made to the plane was the addition of a subfin for yaw stability. The floats are covered with Ultracote only, including the bottoms, to keep them light and they only add about 6 ounces to the weight. The Ultracote has been surprisingly durable on the bottoms and has held up for the 140+ flights without a problem. Being a trainer the plane is a very stable flyer but, as seen in the video, is agile enough to be interesting to fly.

The video was taken by my son using his FLIP video camera which due to zoom limitations and the very small LCD screen make tracking the plane very challenging. I decided to leave the natural sound in the video so you can hear the plane, the waves lapping on the beach, and some interesting commentary by my son and his friends. Towards the end of the video you can hear them reciting lines from the Indiana Jones "Last Crusade" movie. It's the scene where Indy's dad has shot the tail off the biplane they stole from zeppelin.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the video.

dawg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twcx7uVsScc