ORIGINAL: RoyR

I have had a Seawind EP for over 4 years. When I first bought it there was no place good to fly it from water, but it took off great on grass. I have been able to fly it from water a couple of times now, and enjoyed that too. Last year we moved from South East Texas to Colorado and our first winter we got a good enough snow to turn our backyard into a large flying field. Because of the move I hadn't been able to fly rc for over a year, but the Seawind worked great on the snow and I was able to baby it around for a while and make a safe landing. Since then I have gotten back into RC flying big time, and got a lot of flying this summer. The one time I tried to fly my Seawind on water here, the wind prevented it from turning on the water. It wasn't that it weathervaned into the wind, almost the opposite, it seemed bent on staying on a crosswind heading. So I tried a crosswind take off, and it hit a wave and buried the nose in the water. It was salvaged and still in good shape. (looking back, I'm pretty sure I wasn't holding enough up elevator in the rough water as I made my takeoff run)
Now this winter we had a good snow. I took the Seawind out, made a great take off, but got a little too far away with my turn and guess what? White snow, white sky, and white airplane mix very well, meaning I lost reference to the plane. Every time I tried to turn it and bring it back to me, I could not maintain the reference and it got farther away. Finally in a last ditch attempt to bring it back, I still didn't know its orientation, and flew it into the snow. The plane is damaged beyond repair, but all the electronics and servos still work.

It was just so much fun, I am about to order another one, and this time I will put some offsetting color on the bottom of the wing.

I do have a couple of comments about the airplane. In my few experiences in water, the water rudder does next to nothing. I have never been able to taxi crosswind or downwind with anything over a one or two knots of wind. Second, in flight the rudder itself seems to have no effect. The first few times I flew I tried first to see if it would approach doing a knife edge, and when that didn't work, I tested the rudder effectiveness by trying to make rudder turns. Not only did full rudder not cause it to turn in flight, it actually seemed to want to turn the opposite direction of my rudder input. Has anyone else experienced these problems? If so, is there a fix I can try on my next Seawind?

Anyway, with all my problems, I still like it. It does great basic aerobatics, and is very stable. So I should have another one in a couple of weeks. I just hope we get enough snow to try it in the back yard again.