Well, I mounted my cheap floats on my cheap superstar (cheap in price, $45 total for old floats, and new RTF Star from garage sale ), after reading some of this forum, I decided to swap out the 40LA for a 40fp I had laying around, it's running a 10-6 at the moment. These floats have a fixed rudder on the left side, which I think is a little draggy, but I figgured I would give it a go.

It sits a little low in the water, and had a little trouble getting up on step, but made it ok, no wind at all, while on step, but just before take off, there seems to be a bit of tendancy to hook left, so the rudder may be dragging too much, I will try just removing it for now.

Not the prettiest take off, but I got it airborn, it seems to lean to the left a bit, it took about 1/2 of the available aleron trim to get it to straighten out, but then it flew pretty straight at all engine speeds. On the ground, I noticed that the alerons were not even, so there is something causing it to lean in the air.

I putted around for a while, and is semed fine, nice landing with only a little bounce. On the second take off run, the hook got me again, and on the third, I got the left float out early, and didn't compensate fast enough, causing a ground loop which killed the engine. I wonder if the trim caused the left side to lift off early????

The step is about 3/4" aft of cg, but thats the way the floats were set up, It already sits pretty far back with the rear of the floats almost under, If I move them forward, I will probably have to add a little length to the rear of the floats to compensate.

Questions:

1 any ideas on the lean to the left wiht neutral alerons? THe floats look square, and the engine is square to the mount.

2 can you post some pics of water rudders? I know most are only on one side, so how do you keep them from dragging?

Thanks!
Ken