Back in the 70's when I was growing up I subscribed to an r/c mag called RC Sportsman. It came out in newspaper form, and every issue came with a set of full sized plans for the project of the month. I remember one issue had plans for a low wing monoplane that had a single retractable float underneath,and the tip floats flipped up to become the wingtips. I thought that was so cool, and still do. Does anyone remember this mystery floatplane, and where might I possibly find these plans? Has anyone ever experimented with this configuration? We have floatflys in the club about once a month in the summer and fall, and something like this would be really fun to pull out. Let me know what you all think, OK? Thanks.... :spinnyeye

HEHEHEHEHE!! My good friend and fellow club member Bob "Big Bird" Bray is moving and gave to me about 38 liquer boxes full of RC airplane mags, dating all the way back to the 60's. Theres some totally fantastic stuff in there! Anyways, was breezing through one today, and found the inaugural issue of RC Sportsman mag, April 1975. It wasn't in newspaper format like I thought, but I recognised the cover instantly. Guess what was inside? Thats right, on page 22 is an article by Bob Kendall entitled Retractible floats. Theres that mystery floatplane I've thought so much about since getting back into the hobby. As if I didn't have ENOUGH wintertime projects. Anyways, figured I'd share this one. Will keep posted on building progress.

Sounds like a fun project. This center float does it just retract up or is it like a part of the fuselage? Can you show some pics from the magazine?

Hi Amish. The center float retracts up and back, tucks in to become the bottom of the fuse. 2 retracts; fore and aft. The rear retract is steerable for the water rudder. I scanned 2 pics, but can't upload them due to whatever reason. Tried twice last nite, three times tonite and keep getting a stupid msg. about javascript. Email me, I'll send you the article. Since the mag is no longer published, I doubt theres any copyright infringement issues.

pic 1

pic 2

Don't know what I did differently this time, but heres the pics. Gonna go get the plans blown up later this week. Found plans for the Swoose floatplane last night, one of the other club members has one and it is a beautiful plane. Love those flowing lines, inverted gull wing and etc. I'll do the plans for that one, too, and this weekend when I see Tex I'll ask him if he'll sell the Swoose. He never flys it.

For you old timers, it looks sort of like a Bill Barnes Silver Lancer.

The British had a bomber in WWII that had a full-length retractable float - the Blackburn B20. They actually built at least one of these.

http://www.msacomputer.com/FlyingBoats-old/index.html

Dennis,

Thanks for the scanned article. I see he does mention Bill Barnes right at the start.

A buddy and I are going to build it with a few mods. First, we are going to put an old Fazer I have on twin floats to get some experience on the water. I have flown other people's planes off water but never owned one. The Fazer ought to work well.

Next, I found a Bill Barnes web site and downloaded the 3-view of the Silver Lancer. My buddy is going to mod the plans you sent to be close to the "real" thing. We'll keep the tip floats since the ones on the Lancer seem pretty hard to implement.

We'll probably put my OS .91FX in it. We are also thinking 2 pneumatic retracts for the center float and 2 mechanicals for the tips. Some big air units ought to raise the center float.

We were wondering about how much volume a single float should have. If anyone knows a rule-of-thumb, I'd sure like to know it. You rarely see single float planes so there doesn't seem to be as much published about them.

I think that plane was kitted as The Kitty Wake by Top Flight plans were in RCM MAN or AMA

A few years back in one of the model mags was a float fly article and one of the pictures was of a F-18 Hornet "pusher" on a retractable center float.
The float retracted against the bottom of the fuse but when it was down, the wing tip missiles rotated down 45 degrees to act as tip floats but were affective only when the plane was in motion.

The Kitty Wake was a fairly small plane, .25 size, as I remember. This plane is a .60 size. I didn't find a name for the plane.

The fuselage is flat on the bottom like a Stick type plane and it is as deep as a Stick or slightly deeper. The float is flat on top, except for a small curve for the wing. With the float up, the whole "fuselage" is fairly tall.

The rear float retract is a nose gear retract with the steering hooked to the water rudder.

Just looking at the drawings, we feel the nose of the float doesn't extend forward far enough, it is only an inch or so out in front of the prop. You could make it longer and also blend with the fuselage better.

Considering the planes in my buddy's queue already, we probably won't get to it until the first of the year. I'm doing the Fazer on foam floats and he's doing a .15 powered L-19 on built up floats. Then he has a fun fly to frame up for me, followed by an Art Chester Jeep. After that we'll look at the "Silver lancer" with retract floats. This is a fun hobby.

that looks cool, also looks heavy but utterly cool, it would be a great thing to see fly. hope you get to build it, if when you do, give us some pics to dream about??

Any more progress on this retractable float from the fuse? Sounds like an interesting project, maybe for next winter.

Thanks,

Bart

I would also like to see what progress has been made. In the meantime, I'm in the process of building a PBN Nomad that has retractable tip floats/wingtips. I'm using Robart air rertracts. Since it's a true flying boat, the fuselage is the center float.

http://www.rcairplane.net/index0.html