The other day I built me one of those Hydro boats that can go on ground water and the air. I always liked the idea of being able to take off the water and land and drive it around like a boat. Well I grabbed some foam and built one up from pictures I seen of others and kind of came up with a model.

The Hydro flies great and goes on the grass very well and fast enough to take off. But I cant get the darn thing to go in the water worth a flip. I can make it fly but I cant get the boat to go in the water. LOL they way it is now as soon as it starts to pic up speed the water pushes forward and hits the prop. It never gets up on plain to pick up speed. It just cuts through and pushes the water side ways.

This is my second design for the bottom. I am completely clueless how the bottom is supposed to look like. Perhaps someone can point me in a directon. Here are some screen shots. You can see on the first two it was a bit skinnier. I ended up making it a bit wider to get it a bit more stable. That and everyone kept calling it a Lobster..lol. I would really like to fly thing off the water as it seems like it would be a lot of fun.

Hmmmm...... I had one of those a while back. Never really could get it to fly well due to severe lack of skill. I'm gonna rebuild it and try again soon. It looks like your problem is that the sponsons (front parts that are in the water) are angled out rather than being set flat against the water. They need to be able to push down on the water to lift the "boat" out ov the water, like water skiing. With the angle you have on yours they're wasting that push on shoving the water to the sides rather than straight down.

In short, you want to decrease or get rid of the angle on the sponsons' bottoms.Also,you may want to increase their area a bit.If this doesn't help I'll eat my hat, should I happen to be wearing one at the time ;D Good luck!

Haha.

Well that is what I been working on. I heard the same advice from some others that had the same kind of plane. On mine I kept the inside but cut out the outer part and now making it face the bottom. Hope this works out.

The bottom of the front sponsons need a flat surface to ride on, so it can plane out or be able to get on top of the water

SUCCESS!

Hey it works!! Finally I can drive on the water and take off and land! Took me three tries with different shapes of sponsons but now it works. I just got back from the lake it it works beautifully.

But did run into an issue. I somehow got my motor wet and maybe the speed control and it started acting funny. I need to relocate the esc now. I give throttle and it has a stutter sound to it and does not build up to top end rpms. When increasing throttle it stutter goes away but there is a lack of power. Ah well I will figure that out the good thing is it works in the water. Heres some pictures

okay so it was not water. come to find out i had a small blade of grass that got inside the motor. OOPS! haha

Nice scratch build!!!!!!!
I had one of the Reds Hangar Ones, many moons ago, just bought a pair of the Miss Hyperons, on sale at Allerc for $20 each.
Thinking I might super size one and build a monster version, maybe 3 or 4 feet long. Bigger is always better.


Couple of tip on these I've picked up.
Concave the bottom of the sponsons, helps break em loose easier from water.
Decrease the down angle on the motor to help keep the nose up, instead of digging in on water/ grass runs.
On the style you built, without a rudder directly in the airflow, cant both rudders out slightly for better stability. Helps it stay centered.
Locate electronics/pack so when it flips in water the stuff is held out of the water.

Biggie: Use Corrosion X on the electronics. Will pretty much water proof em. Great stuff!!!

Glacier Girl thanks for the tips.

I will use those on my next boat. I know I will make another one since this one is so much fun. And it is just plain different, on water grass and air.

My rudders do have a slight slant to them but not to much. My plan was to have them slanted a good bit but when I went to glue them together top and bottom I noticed I got cheap with my measurements and was short. I think I had an inch extra on each side. Maybe next time 2 inches or 2 1/2 would be better. The motor slant I know exactly what your talking about haha. By habit I had a slight down thrust and quickly seen how that was not the thing to do on these things. OOPS! This thing is a little different from normal plane. I ended up taking out all the down thrust and kept it straight and that seems to be a good spot.

Hey if you make the 3-4 foot version post some pictures on your build. Sounds like a cool idea.

Debating what to make next. I regular plane for sure just to mess around with. But then something weird will be next. It will either be the Phoenix from a 70's cartoon G- Force or a Long Dragon. Kind of like the ones they use in Chinese parades. I always thought that would look cool in the air and have it controlled. That and it would be a nice challenge to make work. Also I don't think I seen anything like that yet

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