I'm not sure where the most appropriate place to post this is, but since the bash has resulted from cracking up the plane I figured this forum might be most appropriate.

Long story short, I have an Avistar that has been my "old reliable" float plane that I will also fly off of snow at my local field during the winter. On Saturday, I encountered a nasty bout of interference on my final approach when the plane was over the Northern tree line. The plane went straight down into the branches of the largest oak tree on the property and wedged itself solidly. :lol: After paying a tree cutting service to climb the 80 feet up to the branch and cut it down, I finally had the plane back. However, it's not in the best shape. The wing is salvageable but will need significant repair to the main spar as well as 5 or 6 ribs. That leads me to my questions.

Since I never can seem to leave well enough alone, I'm thinking of ways to improve the flying characteristics of this plane. It flies on 34" foam core floats from "Plane Fun" 90% of the time. Most of the time it behaves quite well, but I would like it to be slightly more stable and responsive to control inputs. The floats almost seem to almost overwhelm the control surfaces sometimes, especially the rudder and elevator. I have a vertical and horizontal stab from an old Nexstar that I scrapped sitting around, and was noticing that both of them are about 15-20% bigger than the Avistar's. What does everyone think about modding them to fit the Avistar? Remember, this plane flies on floats a vast majority of the time and won't be knocking out any crazy aerobatics any time soon. I'm mainly looking for stability.

I don't see why not, in my experience bigger the tail, better the stability, and assuming the control surfaces are bigger, should make it more responsive.

Agreed. I'm going to move forward with the bash.

irocbsa:

Consider installing a "fin" on the underside of the fuse under the tail. It would improve the stablitity on the water and in the air.

Happy Landings!

Thanks for the suggestion! I considered that, and actually have one sitting around from a set of GP 60 sized floats. However, I don't like the appearance. I looks a bit silly on the plane when I've mocked it up.

I mights have to revisit the idea in the future if my current plan doesn't yield good results.