Float video PA22-160

[rocket]

Click on the link below for a short video of my tripacer on floats.

http://www.glassywater.com/Kulik_glassy.mov 3.4MB

and

http://www.glassywater.com/kulik_lake-in_the_fall.mov 6.9MB

If you are lucky they will open in a viewer.

Rocket

[Geoff Newcombe]

Lovely!
Geoff

[Guest]

Well, "Rocket" you have officially proven that it is indeed possible to have too much fun ! That looks like a real trip I am jealous.

[gbottolfsen]

Format

Rocket
Video no work.
Please post in a usable format.
Thanks
GB

Click on the link below for a short video of my tripacer on floats.

http://www.glassywater.com/Kulik_glassy.mov 3.4MB

and

http://www.glassywater.com/kulik_lake-in_the_fall.mov 6.9MB

If you are lucky they will open in a viewer.

Rocket

[JohnW]

Werks fer me! Now that is my idea of F-U-N!!! Thanks!

[rocket]

GB
I must apolagize for not being internet video smart. I am trying the u-tube route but it is being a pain with our alaskan bandwidth bottleneck.
check back later.

Rocket

[rocket]

I hope this works better, could be a little slow.


Rocket

[gbottolfsen]

Rocket
Super, looks like fun, the flim played great.
Thanks
GB

[rocket]

Flying floats FYI

Re: PA22-160S on EDO 2000 videos
by rocket reply to woolfert on Sat Sep 19, 2009 10:18 pm

GW

The landing was filmed by the winter watchman unbeknown to me and was quite a surprise. Lucky for me it was one of my better landings! I think I had about 200 hours in the bat-plane on floats at the time and about three on wheels: 2007.

There are many references one uses in judging hight above the water. in the takeoff video fall of 2008 it was classical gassy water. My friends on the beach asked me to "buzz" the beach but after i was airborne I realized i needed to maintain a positive rate of clime until I had good 100 feet AGL and then carefully turn around while maintaining my altitude not much of a buzz but safer than flying into the water unexpectantly. I cannot began to explain the vertigo one can/i have experienced over a large lake that was perfectly calm and flat-glassy. One can also experience a flash of sinking / disorientation that really gets your attention. There was a arctic explore(Frechian ?) back in the day that enplaned something the native people called kayak sickness where they froze up unable to move because their mind could not see the surface of the water and then told them they were falling-he described the experience as truly frightening.

Glassy water is without a doubt the most dangerous condition in flying floats:
-Installs a false sense of comfort, no wind to worry about right; right.
-touchdown speed is increased magnifying any problems with ones approach; see above.
-increased surface tension of undisturbed water coupled with increased touchdown speed causes a significant forward pitching moment; see above
-Inability to judge ones hight above the water forces a stabilized approach that when performed perfectly causes the actual contact with the water to be determined by a peripheral view of the spray shooting out from the bottom of your outboard float. When not performed well, well you know, see above.

Visual clues like a shadow can work well I use a shadow landing on snow/frozen rivers when it is handy. The choppy water is fairly easy to read as far as hight. As a rule I really do not like to fly out over a lake and turn around and land toward the shore but sumtimes one has no choice. I have read that throwing out a life vest or even map is better than nothing when it is glassy.

Enough for now,

Rocket

[Guest]

Flying floats FYI

Glassy water is without a doubt the most dangerous condition in flying floats:
-Installs a false sense of comfort, no wind to worry about right; right.
-touchdown speed is increased magnifying any problems with ones approach; see above.
-increased surface tension of undisturbed water coupled with increased touchdown speed causes a significant forward pitching moment; see above

Rocket

Hi Rocket;
Your points about a Glassy Water landing are well taken and valid. I learned the standard training for flying on water, however, my first "real glassy water" landing was a real eye opener. What didn't get passed across in training is that in most situations of glassy water, you are IFR for the last 100 feet or so. I cut my teeth for glassy water landings in Lake Tahoe and the calm and serene water was never where you thought it was. A beautiful adventure but it can rear up and bite you. Beyond that, I have a curiosity with your above statement about increased touchdown speed. I learned in a Lake LA4-200 and the procedure taught was virtually identical to a soft field landing where you are flying "close to" 1.3 VSO and using power to control your rate of descent to virtually "feel for the water". Short term reference to the attitude indicator for level wings and pitch attitude control. Just for a point of reference, how do you determine how much of an increased approach speed you use. One thing that may be a delta with the Tripacer on floats and the Lake is that the Lake is a pusher and it is kind of "automatic" to trim in anticipation of the considerable pitch down that a subsequent application of power will bring. Additionally I think if I ever really "dropped in" a glassy water landing I would rather have a nose high attitude in a Lake than in a pontoon such as a Tripacer so I could support a little extra speed for the purpose of keeping a lower nose attitude but that would put you in the water faster and you would be having to control water and friction issues longer.
Anyway, hope you are taking this as an exchange of dialog, I really want to come up your way, and do some snow and water flying in a PAxx some day after I get all my other wish list money items taken care of. Take care and keep posting your experiences, I enjoy reading it, especially since the opportunity to fly in water here in Phoenix is limited to me doing "belly flops" in my swimming pool.

[portouwl]

Download Real Player. Works fine.

[rocket]

WM

I was less clear then i intended about the increased touchdown speed-I was inferring that without the usual Alaskan 15-35 knot wind your touchdown speed increases accordingly.

More pacer specific is a function of our small wing and moment arm (wing to h. stab length) and both its superior roll and pitch rate which also causes it to be more laterally unstable. Imagine a rod running wing-tip to wing-tip, when we land the drag of our floats is counteracted by pulling back on the yoke. Land a little to hot descending to fast and have your head up ones proverbial ass and wham-o-upside down.

One of my " new" flight instructors who had not been ready for the pitching moment yanked the yoke back into my stumic, all I could see was blue sky, for the first and last time i calmly proclaimed, YOU GOT IT! After I cleaned my shorts I explained to him that quickly pulling the yoke back about half way was plenty.

It took about three years but now I can feel the H stab drop as I am deep into ground effect. So on a long stabilized approach I can feel the aircraft telling me to get ready. I have rearly been forced to do a glassy water landing without using a ground reference at say 30 feet over trees or ten feet over grass, almost always going away from the beach but in more trusted areas parallel to the beach-. So I am not doing one of those long 3 mile approaches my cfi made me do over and over again. I do say out load to my self, oh, glassy water. I scoot up in my seat, then turn all my internal instruments to high, and get it done.

Lunch is over, back to that leaky Beaver...

Rocket

[jay heil]

could someone convert them to mpeg and post them? my puter is to old to get a quik time player the way it looks thanks Jay

[rocket]

Darn Jay,
dig down the thred a little and you will find I put them on u-tube.

Good luck,

THe hanger troll