Hello all

Im putting Zeedo 34" floats on my Cessna 182. Does anyone know what the A of A should be when the aircraft is floating on water.

How can I make water rudders? I need plans, does anyone know where to find them on the net?

Any tips for flying her off the water & landing it? Its my first time.

THanks Rich

Rich,

Welcome to Float Flying! It's a blast.

I'm assuming when you say it's your first time, you mean water flying. I'm assuming you can handle this plane fine on wheels, if not burn more nitro so you are very comfortable flying it.

I would start at 2 degrees positive. When you look at the plane from the side, the float tips should be lower (further away from the fuse) at the nose of the plane than they are at the tail.

I don't know if it is available where you are, but the best thing to make water rudders out of is PVC rain gutter pipe. I've used plywood successfully in the past but it starts to get soggy after a while. A guy had some pics of nice PVC gutter rudders a while back here in the Seaplanes forum.

For water flying make sure you have a retrieval boat and look here in the seaplanes forum for more info on starting float flying. This gets covered often and if you go down a few threads you will find lots of info on this.

If you can, post a pic of your 182. My first plane ride was in one, so I like them. There's a guy here on RCU called Wile-E. He has some beautiful 182's on floats. Several different sizes.

Jeff

Rich:

That 2 degrees is the angle between the top of the floats and the chord centerline of the wing.

There are a couple of companies that make water rudders. Earnst and Williams Bros. come to mind. Try Google to look them up.

As far as taking off, wait for a day with calm water. Let the airplane build up flying speed on the water before you pull back on the elevator. Stay off the rudder during the take off run. Water rudders are only for taxiing. Landing is easy. Just like landing a tail dragger on land but with less tendancy to balloon.

Jim

Hi Jim & Jeff

THanks for your info. Im in a rush, coz Im flying out the country in 2 hours. Ill write more later. Here is a pic of my cessna in the meantime.

Later. & Thanks again

Rich

I think the phone might fall off into the water.