Since you need a little more power to break the water I'm surprised at the lack of designs for .09 power.

It makes sense to me that you could fly a half-a size model with a mild .09 glo or diesel with a muffler so you could fly quietly in some locations instead of a screaming .049 on open exhaust.

I have a fairly large retention pond in my neighborhood and could slip in there and fly a float plane if it were slow enough and more importantly, quiet enough.

A "Lazy Bee" on floats would probably be a good choice but I'd love to see some more options for my .09's.

The smaller airplanes are just a pain on floats, they get blown around easier, affected by the chop more and if you don't have a muffler they are loud. The best pane for the small engines are floaters, trainer, old timers and the such tthat you can cheat and have a bigger air frame for the smaller motor. A Quaker Flash would be a good choice if you want a floater. The problem is not everyone wants a floater and when you get a smaller, nimbler airframe for a 1/2 A motor it's difficult to get in the air, not as much fun to fly, and usually noisy. Most people want a .40 size or bigger so that's were the majority of the designs are. That doen't mean you can't shrink down a good exsisting design or design your own airplane.....

Evan,

Good idea, I have four A-Texaco kits, already started building a 54" Quaker Flash and a Cleveland Cloudster 55"

I checked the fuselage lengths and without rudders, the QF is 32" and the CC is about 27."

If I remember my basic float plane layout, the floats should be about 75% of the fuselage length so that means I will need a minimum of 24" floats for the QF and roughly 21" for the CC.

As luck would have it, I picked up a nice pair of GWS edo style floats for ten bucks in a local hobby shop that have foam tops and a vacuum-formed plastic bottom half, They are 21".

Oh, I also have kits for a Kloud King 43," a Scram 55" and a Sterling Tri-pacer at around 44."

Guess I could use something already in the house.

I am really serious about an .09 being a great size engine for small planes. You don't have to worry so much about servo weight and you can carry more flight battery. Some people will say a Norvel .061 puts out as much power as an older .09...I say, "Oh yeah, what if Norvel made an .09?"

I have a strong love of Quakers so I would say get a set of floats on the Flash... 21" sounds good. My calculations say around 22" but 21" is very close. The problem with a lightly loaded airplane like this is that most floats are too bouant. Each float should dispace the weight of the aircraft. In other words if you have a 2 pound plane each float should hold up 2 pounds before sinking. With a plane like this most floats that are the right length are too wide (and heavy) because they are designed for a normal airplane. When I built mine they ended up very narrow and look elegant like the Quaker. They also ended up very light. I built mine up from balsa and ply and used .5 fiberglass to seal them. This is on a 105" Quaker, almost exactly twice the size of the flash, and my floats are 50" long. I would build them a couple of inches shorter if I was to build another set. I've built many out of foam and fiberglassed them and that's what I would recommend for you.

I agree fully with evan-RCU about normal floats being too bulky for light planes like the old timers. I've built over 100 pairs of foam core floats and just this last week I built my first set of "slim" floats for the lighter planes. These are 42" long and would be for planes like Kadet Seniors, Telemasters, and other light planes. I think I'll do other sizes as well........Seaplane

...well, small water planes can work great. In terms of water handling and such things, this little thing is very capable...



...but I know that I'm bias.

Would people be interested if I made a plans version of it to fly on a radial mounted .049 or maybe a norvel .06?
I could provide an extra sheet that is just the fin area for the motor mount etc. While there may be a need to have a little ballast in the nose, methinks that a Norvel version would be quite cool.

Evan,

That big Quaker looks great on floats. To me, that's what a float plane should look like for what I want to do.

I'd love to see pictures of some other old classic FF cabin ships converted to RC Floatplane use.

KM,

I saw your video on your little "Twinkle." It flies great and the handling on the water is superb.

Did you ever think of having taxiing races?

My retention pond might be a little less than I need for something as fast as your "Twinkle." An .061 Norvel version should really honk. I think larger version with a mild .09 might provide useful power for slower flying.

KM,
I would be interested in plans for that thing. It isn't my usual type of plane, and that is what I am looking for. I bet it does well of of grass too.
Ben

Dan,
Here is a nice little plane for .10
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXAGD2&P=0

OK, that goes on the list. For some reason I thought that was a smaller .049 size model

That will do fine.

First I have to get something for my neighborhood retention pond. I think maybe a Lazy bee.

I recently found another larger lake about a mile from the house and my daughter-in-law's father has a house on the lake.

It's much larger so I may be doing some floatplane flying there.

Thanks for the tip.