ORIGINAL: davcoz
I received interesting information from Great Planes today when I called about using the Seawind with retracts. I was told that you CANNOT fly it off the water when using retracts. They told me that you fly it off the water without gear, or you fly it off land with gear. You can't do both. I was concerned about how you seal up the retracts when you fly it off the water so I called customer service and this was the answer that I got. So for you guys that bought the retracts to use this plane as an amphibian you better check again.
Actually, you can. Just retract the nose gear, attach the nosewheel cover and seal it with clear tape. Without going through a LOT of difficult work, you can't make the airplane a "true" amphib. You can't take off from land and then land in water or vice-versa. One purpose at a time. If you have retract installed, though, it's only a few minutes change to make the model water-ready.