I am in the process of putting a 1/4 scale monocoupe on floats. I plan on rigging wires for the retract and steering of the water rudders. I built the great planes floats because they were inexpensive and I don't mind building. I thought about servos in the floats. It just seemed like too much work for something this small (1/4 scale). I also didn't want any extra weight aft of the CG since many float planes require weight in the front of the floats to balance. Obviously the wires are the most scale looking. It is difficult to make servos in the floats look scale. The other nice thing about the wires is that all of the adjustments are made outside the floats and the airplane, with fairly easy access. If you aren't going for the scale look, then the servo in the float might work. I ordered my pulleys from Tower. I drew up my planned rig so I knew exactly how many pulleys to order (they aren't cheap). I am going with a closed loop for the steering. This will require two cables from the rudder setup down to the floats. The other water rudder steering input arms will run through pulleys to the other arm of the other water rudder. For retract, each float will have a wire coming from the aircraft to the float. A total of 4 wires will go from aircraft to float. Two more wires will go from water rudder to water rudder, for a total of six wires. It sounds much more confusing than it is. Using the correct fishing line (fluoro), everything should be tight enough to prevent slop. We'll see!

As a side note, I am in the dreaming/planning process of putting something larger on floats and trying to install a retract system in the float. Obviously it will need to be large to handle the weight. I need to get my coupe finished before I dream too big!