If it has not it will.......... Meaning your plane stalls in the pond. Normally I have always flown mine off the Back of my 19 foot Ski Boat. Now that I have a 12 acre pond to fly off of, with no john boat....... How do I make some sort of retrieval system ?????? A Cheap RC boat with a hook of some sort? Give me ideas........ John boat not an option just yet...

I've not flown seaplanes, so take this FWIW......

The effectiveness of the retrival system depends on the situation your plane is in. e.g. If you do a good landing and are upright but stalled in the middle of the water then a couple of systems would do the trick e.g. an electric motor and prop installed in the floats or hull, or a tug boat to push or tow the plane.

But what if you've flipped the plane over? Driving it wouldn't work, and attempting to tow it may just drive it undrwater.

If you're on an enclosed lake there'll be no current and the water should be fairly calm. In which case you could just get a cheap 2-3 man inflatable like the ones you buy at the beach. Get yourself a 12v inflator and a paddle, and the whole kit 'n kaboodle is fairly compact until you actually need to inflate and use it....

A lot of stuff works ....sometimes.

A long pole with a generous-sized hook on the end is useful.

A tennis ball on a string, or A spincasting rod with a weighted bobber can snag the plane and drag it back sometimes, but having a pole in your hands inexplicably tends to make the wind blow from you toward the airplane so it is out of range in one or 2 casts. FOr more range, a bow and arrow with a fishing reel will project a retrieval line out a long way.

An R/C boat towing a bobber with a grapple on it is pretty simple to run. just circle the plane until it's snagged, and drag it back.

Check the math: You can BUY a jon-boat for the price of a r/c boat+batteries, radio, charger,ESC, etc. ( Or a compound bow with a fishing reel on it) With a jon-boat, you can retrieve your plane from the god-forsaken brier patch it drifted into, or you can pick up the floating fragments after a major malfunction. AND, you can use the jon-boat for other stuff.

Or you can just wait for the wind to blow it to shore....

When you consider the cost of a surface radio, boat kit--or materials to build from a plan, motor, and your time to build the boat, maybe a johnboat is cheaper. Think about it?

So the cost of a John boat for $500 is cheaper than a RadioShack Tugboat with grapple made on it for $75 ? []

You think a cheapo Rat Shack electric boat will be powerful enough to tow back the pieces of your prized 120 sized seaplane?

Take a look at that Radio Shack tug. Some of these models have a range of 100 feet.

I usually bring along an air mattress, it means getting wet though. Good thing i've never had to use it.

on a hot day swimming is FREE...won't try it in the winter tho...

john

Yes I think a small boat can slowly tow back my .40 Seamaster [:'(]

Who is this John anyway? And can't you just borrow his boat?