As such, there are two seaplane/floatplane training operations in the area: Seattle Seaplanes, located on the southeast corner of Lake Union (0W0), and Kenmore Air, with two locations, one on the northwest side of Lake Union (W55) and another on Lake Washington on the north tip of Renton Municipal Airport (KRNT).

Who Gets a Seaplane/Floatplane Rating?

There are three kinds of people who attain seaplane ratings.

The first are those who do it as a bucket-list item. They may never get near the water again, but they have the rating to show off. The second is the person who earns the rating because they dream about owning a seaplane someday. The third is the person, who by happenstance, luck, and/or determination, gets a job flying a float-equipped aircraft for scenic flights, taking fishermen and hunters to the backcountry, or providing flight instruction.

Sometimes it is a matter of being in the right place at the right time, as it was for Seattle resident Kit Warfield. Warfield, now retired, spent several years as a professional pilot at Seattle Seaplanes.

Warfield’s water journey began in 2008 when she was a land-based CFI teaching private pilot ground school. Two of the learners in the class were taking their training on floats and suggested Warfield reach out to their instructor, who was looking for pilots for his school.

• READ MORE: Boston-to-New York Seaplane Service Ends Scheduled Operations

“Like lots of land-based pilots, I always thought it would be fun to get a seaplane rating but didn’t actually pursue it directly,” said Warfield, noting that when she contacted the instructor at Seattle Seaplanes, she cautioned that she did not own a seaplane rating.

“My eventual boss replied, “That’s OK. I’ll train you, and then you can come work for me,’” Warfield said. “Hmm…Get a seaplane rating and get to use it?! Sign me up!”

Warfield earned her single-engine seaplane rating in August 2008. She has 4,100 hours total time, 3,800 in seaplanes. Much of that time came from instructing.

If the pilot in training already flies land airplanes, there can be some negative transference. For example, there are no brakes on the water, just energy to manage. This means you have to be extra vigilant when the aircraft is on the water because boats you’re sharing the space with don’t have brakes either, although there’s something to be said for reverse thrust.

“Once you are underway, you are truly underway. You can’t just set the brake and pause for a moment,” said Warfield. “Situational awareness is key all the time. Yes, that’s true with land planes as well, but seaplane pilots have to keep an eye out for paddle boarders, sailboats, watercraft,and occasionally wildlife.”

Warfield has seen whales, sea lions, birds, and even encountered a seal on one occasion during a landing.

“He regaled me then slipped back under the water,” she said. “I wonder what he thought of me and my airplane?”

Warfield puts on her CFI hat in offering advice to those who seek a seaplane rating.

• READ MORE: WWII-Era ‘Philippine Mars’ Transport Seaplane Headed to Arizona Museum

“The Seaplane, Skiplane, and Float/Ski Equipped Helicopter Operations Handbook (FAA-H-8083-23) is an excellent resource for aspiring seaplane pilots and can be downloaded from the FAA website,” she said. “Learners who have tailwheel experience or sailing are often able to apply that experience to the seaplane training, as the seaplane is taxied with the yoke or stick all the way aft like a tailwheel-equipped aircraft, and the flaps, when deployed, act like sails, and if the pilot can read the wind, he or she can sail the seaplane like a boat on the water. There are some procedures that are slightly different from land procedures, such as performing the run-up before the aircraft leaves the dock, and you don’t goose the throttle to make a taxi turn.”

One of the most common questions is: How long does it take to earn a seaplane rating?

“My standard answer is: It depends,” said Warfield. “There’s no set hour requirement from the FAA, but it generally takes a pilot at least five to eight hours to get proficient in the basics. Pilots with a combo of tailwheel experience, sailing (or boating) experience, and comfort in a small plane really figure out SES pretty quickly.”

Warfield calls it very basic flying, meaning daytime VFR flight only.

“The planes I flew don’t have GPS or glass cockpit or anything fancy like that,” she said. “I look at it not as a challenge, though, but as an opportunity for the learner pilot to see just how much fun it is to fly a seaplane. In fact my boss said, ‘If they’re not having fun, you’re not doing your job right.’

“While it’s true a person can’t readily rent a seaplane, it is still worth getting a seaplane rating. It helps hone skills, observations, and you get to do all kinds of cool stuff with an airplane that you can’t do on land, e.g. step turns, or beaching the airplane somewhere. It’s a lot of fun and you learn a lot. So, why not?”

The Dream

Steve Skoog, a Seattle-area pilot who holds ATP ratings for both MEL and SEL as well as type rating for DA50 and LR-jet with a total of 6,500 hours with eight in seaplanes, said he had always aspired to earn a seaplane rating.

“Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, I have always dreamed of getting a seaplane rating,” Skoog said. “My dream was actually to own a house on Lake Washington and Lake Chelan…and fly my seaplane back and forth. As an adult I now realize how dreadfully expensive that dream is, but I can’t wait to fly a seaplane from Lake Washington to Lake Chelan and back.”

There was definitely some negative transference, Skoog recalled.

“I would find myself rotating my feet forward on the rudder pedals, trying to apply the brakes that weren’t there,” he said. “When landing, as the seaplane slows down, you apply back pressure to keep the tips of the floats out of the water. Sounds simple, but as you come off step, the nose of the Cessna 172 seaplane really starts to pitch up. Every instinct and reflex told me to release the back pressure, but the proper procedure at that point in the landing is to keep full back pressure. It took me most of the week to overcome that habit.”

Splash-and-goes were easily his favorite part of training.

“You fly just above the water in the step attitude, then pull out a little bit of power, touch down momentarily, add the power back in, and return to flying a few feet above the water,” Skoog said. “You can do countless landings in just a matter of minutes.”

Resources

• The Seaplane Pilots Association (seaplanepilotsassociation.org) is one of the best sources for all things seaplanes.
• The Water Landing Directory, available as an app, can help you access information about waterways, seaplane bases, and fueling. It also provides a destination guide and event calendar along with a seaplane flight training guide that lists seaplane schools around the world with details about the type of aircraft they use and how to contact them.

History

The first aircraft produced by the Boeing Co. was on floats, the Boeing Model 1.

In 1916 William Boeing established the Pacific Aero Products Company (later known as Boeing) in the Pacific Northwest because of the abundance of spruce trees. Airplanes were made of wood in those days, and spruce is a light wood that can take a bullet as a through and through, unlike pine, oak, and alder that all splinter. Boeing wanted to sell aircraft to the military for use in World War I.

Boeing took his first airplane ride on a Curtiss seaplane, accompanied by Terah Maroney. Maroney was a pioneer of early aviation in the U.S. known for her barnstorming exploits.

In 1916 the Boeing Model 1, also known as the B&W, rolled out of the factory. However, the U.S. Navy rejected the design and instead it was sold to New Zealand Flying School.

This feature first appeared in the July/August Issue 949 of the FLYING print edition.

The post For Those Aviators Attracted to Water appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Today’s Top Pick is a 1979 Cessna R172K Skyhawk.

When pilots talk about using aircraft to pursue adventures, floatplanes often find their way into the conversation. A desire to explore remote airports—and perhaps the occasional grass strip—tends to expand to include landing modified STOL airplanes on hillsides, gravel bars, and beaches. But why land on the shore if you can land in the water?

The Cessna for sale here appeals to me because I learned to fly in 172s and do not often see them on floats and subsequently on the market. While a fully kitted-out de Havilland Beaver is the stuff of flying fantasies, a 172 is a more reasonable goal for many of us. I can think of a few shores where I would love to beach this one. 

This Cessna 172K has 2,953 hours on the airframe and 1,342 hours since overhaul on its Continental IO-360 engine, which, rated at 200 hp, is a significant upgrade over engines in stock 172s. The aircraft comes with standard landing gear, so it can be converted between land and water use. Its useful load is 600 pounds with floats and 930 pounds with landing gear.

The panel includes a Garmin 430 GPS/nav/com, Garmin GTX 345 ADS-B transponder, Garmin Aera portable GPS, Horizon Aircraft digital tachometer, JPI 450 fuel flow meter, and JPI EDM 700 engine monitor.

Pilots who want to train for a seaplane rating and build time on the water, or those already rated who wish to add a floatplane to their fleet, should take a look at this 1979 Cessna 172K, which is available for $250,000 on AircraftForSale.

You can arrange financing of the aircraft through FLYING Finance. For more information, email info@flyingfinance.com.

• FLYING Magazine: Getting Back in the Water: Seaplane Fly-Ins That Inspire
• FLYING Magazine: Hopping the Virgin Islands by Seaplane
• FLYING Magazine: How Seaplane Floats Work
• FLYING Magazine: Connecticut Airport Keeping Seaplanes on the River
• Plane & Pilot: Learning To Fly Seaplanes
• Plane & Pilot: Least-Routine Float Landing Ever
• The Aviation Consumer: Seaplane Transitions: ‘Tis the Season

The post This 1979 Cessna 172K Floatplane Is an Adventure-Seeking ‘AircraftForSale’ Top Pick appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Today’s Top Pick is a 2014 Cessna 208 Caravan

Piston pilots have a variety of reasons for transitioning to turboprops, from making trips faster and carrying more stuff to reaching out-of-the-way places, especially at high elevations. This Cessna 208 Caravan could be ideal for a PIC who prefers high-wing aircraft and regularly carries significant loads. The aircraft handles a broad range of personal and commercial missions and can deal with remote and unimproved fields comfortably. 

This Caravan has 524 hours on the airframe and its Pratt & Whitney PT6A-T14A. Its three-blade McCauley 3GFR34C703 propeller has 161 hours since overhaul. A new Hartzell four-blade composite Yukon prop—to be installed later this year—will reduce the aircraft’s takeoff distance and improve its climb. An extended nose gear fork and 29-inch tires enhance the aircraft’s performance on unimproved runways. The Cessna also is equipped with a Wipaire single-point fueling system, four-place intercom and 13-place oxygen system. The airplane is currently configured to carry 10 passengers. 

Avionics are Garmin G1000, dual Garmin GRS 77s, Garmin GFC 700 autopilot, Garmin GTX 33 transponder, GWX weather radar, and a King KN 63 DME and  KR 87 ADF.

Pilots interested in island hopping, high-elevation bush flying, commercial cargo, or more ambitious family travel should consider this 2014 Cessna 208 Caravan, which is available on AircraftForSale.

You can arrange financing of the aircraft through FLYING Financial Group. For more information, email info@flyingfinancial.com.

• FLYING Magazine: Cessna Caravan Perfected?
• Plane & Pilot: A Caravan With Seoul
• Plane & Pilot: Largest All-Electric Plane Takes Flight
• The Aviation Consumer: Cessna 208 Caravan
• The Aviation Consumer: Used Aircraft Guide: Cessna Caravan

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Today’s Top Pick is a 2022 Aviat A-1C-180 Husky with floats

With summer winding down and fall just around the corner, there isn’t a better time to go amphibious, especially if you live in an area of the country with four seasons. The weather is cooler, the camping is more comfortable, and the leaves offer an array of scenery that makes fall the most spectacular time of the year. 

If you are looking for a late-model amphib airplane with low total time, this 2022 two-seat Aviat Husky with just 182 hours is an intriguing choice. The Husky has a mean black and red paint job that will turn heads, but that is just the beginning. The teak and holly floorboards are a signature of the Husky, reminding you of  the wooden boats of yesteryear.

This Husky was recently outfitted with floats from Wipaire and comes equipped with Wipaire’s exclusive, safety-enhancing laser gear advisory system.  A major danger for an amphib floatplane pilot has been ensuring that the gear is in the correct position, depending on whether the airplane is landing on water or land.

However, the Wipaire laser gear advisory system, which uses laser sensors to determine the surface the aircraft is landing on, ensures that the gear is in the appropriate position to avoid potential hazards. 

This Husky also comes equipped with Garmin avionics, with free ADS-B weather. The tandem-seat is equipped with a Lycoming O-360-A1P engine. 

In addition to the airplane’s low total time, it has been well-maintained and is available for $500,000 on Aircraft For Sale. 

Interested in learning more about the Husky?

From the FLYING Media archives about the Aviat Husky: 

(Note: equipment featured in articles may differ from the above listing.)

• FLYING Magazine: Aviat Husky: This backcountry machine is a modern-day taildragger

• FLYING Magazine: Wipaire delivers its 500th set of the 2100A floats 

• FLYING Magazine video on YouTube: Aviat Husky 

• Aviation Consumer: Aviat Husky (March 24, 2021) 

• Aviation Consumer: Aviat Husky (April 19, 2023)

• Plane & Pilot: Rocky Mountain High – the Aviat Husky

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The Yukon propeller was on display at the 2023 Sun ‘n Fun Aerospace Expo, gracing the nose of a Cessna Caravan at Wipaire’s display. 

The prototype of the propeller was introduced last summer at EAA AirVenture, prompting curiosity about the propeller’s performance.

“There is up to a 26 percent decrease in total take-off distance from land and up to a 31 percent decrease from water,” according to JJ Frigge, president of Hartzell Propeller. “This translates into safer take off and landings on smaller lakes and shorter runways.”

• READ MORE: Hartzell Voyager Propeller Approved for Cessna 180s

The propeller allows for an increase in cruise speed at lower power settings, Fridge said, adding,  “up to 2 knots faster, saving fuel while increasing speed. Another big improvement is in weight. Coming in at 137 pounds, it is up to 19 pounds lighter than other available props.”

The Yukon prop on display at the Sun ‘n Fun airshow was mounted on a Wipaire Caravan 208B with the Blackhawk -140 engine conversion. 

The company noted there is no change in stall speeds with the new propeller. The design is available with TKS, electric de-ice boots or without icing equipment, and optional pitch locks.

• READ MORE: Wipaire Delivers 150th Set of Wipline 13000 Floats to Trans Maldivian Airways

The Yukon is designed for use on Pratt & Whitney PT6A-114A shp and PT6A-140 867 shp engines, and can be used on either the 208 and 208B either with floats or on wheels.

“We are ready to take deposits and, depending on the FAA, we expect to have our STC later this year,” says Chuck Wiplinger, president and CEO of Wipaire.

The post Hartzell, Wipaire Conclude Testing of Yukon Prop, Await STC appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The search for survivors was called off at noon Monday. The bulk of the wreckage has not been located; however, some personal items believed to have come from the aircraft cabin and a 6-foot-by-18-inch piece of the fuselage with the aircraft tail number, N725TH, were recovered. The aircraft is registered to Northwest Seaplanes, a Part 135 charter and sightseeing company. 

Northwest Seaplanes is a family-owned business that was founded by Clyde Carlson in 1988. The aircraft was en route to Renton. Floatplanes fly between Renton and the San Juan Islands on a regular basis. 

Witnesses to the accident told officials that the aircraft dove straight into the water. Shortly after the crash, the body of a woman was recovered from the water by good samaritans. The body is in the possession of the coroner pending positive identification. 

The Coast Guard searched the area for more than 20 hours, from both the air and water hoping for survivors, but none were found. The average temperature of the water in the Puget Sound is roughly 54 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The Coast Guard estimates a person can survive in such temperatures for no more than a few hours.

Witnesses described the weather at the time of the accident as “very windy.” One witness told a local television station that a floatplane trying to land on the water probably would have had damage to the floats.

There are no reports of the pilot issuing a distress call.

During a press conference Monday afternoon, a Coast Guard spokesperson said the decision to call off the search was a painful one, and was made only after the next of kin were notified.

As part of the search efforts, submersible search units were lowered into the water and the cellphones of the passengers were pinged, yet the wreckage was not found. 

According to a tweet from the U.S. Coast Guard, “Coast Guard assets completed 26 search sorties covering 1,283 linear nautical miles and saturating an area of more than 2100 sq. nautical miles.”

What Happened

According to a tweet from Flightradar24, the last ADS-B signal from the aircraft was received at 22:08 UTC and the aircraft was showing a descent of 7,744 fpm. The altitude normally flown by Turbine Otters along this route is approximately 600 feet above the surface.

Whidbey Island has many homes along the beach. The Coast Guard is asking the public to notify them if they see an oil slick in the water or find wreckage. 

The accident came at the end of a busy weekend for the aircraft. Flightaware.com shows the aircraft made several trips from Renton Municipal Airport (KRNT), south of Seattle, to the San Juan Islands to the north. Because the aircraft was equipped with amphibious floats, it could operate from either water or land runways.

On Sunday, September 4 at 9:33 a.m., the aircraft took off from KRNT bound for Roche Harbor (WA09), according to the Coast Guard, though the seaplane base there is W39. The aircraft returned to KRNT, then departed for Windsock (4WA4) on Lopez Island, then to Friday Harbor, back to Roche Harbor, returned to Friday Harbor, and then launched on the accident flight back to Renton.

The aircraft’s last takeoff was from Friday Harbor at 2:50 p.m. local time Sunday. Its last ADS-B report was 18 minutes later near Oak Harbor. The Coast Guard reports the aircraft went down off Whidbey Island, approximately 34 nm northwest of Seattle. 

Northwest Seaplanes posted on its Facebook page: “The team at Northwest Seaplanes is heartbroken, we don’t know any details yet regarding the cause of the accident. We are working with the FAA, NTSB, and [Coast Guard]. We have been in communication with the families. We are praying for the families involved, including our pilot and his family.”

FLYING’s attempts to reach the company for comment were unsuccessful. A team from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived in Seattle Monday night. The investigation is expected to take one year to 18 months.

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Frenchman Henri Fabre’s name might not ring a bell to most people. But it just might to pilots operating aircraft that use lakes and rivers as their runways. In 1910, Fabre was credited with the first flight of a powered seaplane at Martigues near Marseille, France. Oddly, Fabre was not even a pilot when he flew his gangly looking Hydravion aircraft just over a mile. The airplane’s plywood floats were so elegantly designed more than a hundred years ago that they created additional lift once the aircraft was airborne. Fabre’s seaplane flight was followed a year later by another similar event, this flight by American aviation pioneer Glenn Curtis at the controls of his Curtis Model D. Curtis’ airplane employed a central float and outboard sponsons for stability. So radical was Curtis’ feat in early 20th-century America, he was awarded the first Collier Trophy for flight achievement.

Within 25 years of those first flights, enormous flying boats such as Pan Am’s Clippers became renowned for their luxurious trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic flights. Today, operating on the water has become the realm of smaller aircraft such as the Cessna Caravan on floats or the Super Viking (an updated version of the famous de Havilland Twin Otter), not to mention a host of single-engine aircraft that often traded their factory-installed landing gear for a set of enormous pontoons. Many of today’s floats include retractable landing gear that transforms them into versatile amphibious machines able to operate from both hard-surface runways and the water.

A major player in design and construction of aircraft floats is Wipaire, a family-owned business based at Fleming Field (KSGS) in South St. Paul, Minnesota. The company, also operating from the nearby Wipline Seaplane Base (09Y), has been creating the successful Wipline series of floats since the early 1960s, when the company evolved from Wiplinger Aircraft Service under the guidance of company patriarch Ben Wiplinger. The original Wiplinger Aircraft Service focused on converting surplus military Douglas DC-3s and Lockheed Lodestars into corporate aircraft for companies such as 3M.

A Family Business

Ben purchased his first seaplane in 1951, and the company’s focus on aircraft at home on the water began. He began testing his first set of floats on the Cessna 180 he purchased in 1961. Those first floats were created with a metal bonding system that reduced the rivet count and saved weight, as well as incorporated another of Ben’s simple yet unique ideas: a flat surface on top that made stepping into and out of an airplane both easier and safer by keeping everyone’s feet dry.

Succeeding Ben was his son Bob, known to all as Wip, the company’s chairman of the board. He remembers his early days at the airport and becoming involved in the business. “When I was 4 or 5 years old, I began running around Fleming Field on my tricycle. By 10 or 12, I was fueling DC-3s and Lodestars in addition to the little airplanes.” He soloed in a Piper Cub at age 15 and, by 1978, began running Wipaire Aviation Services, before he spearheaded a name change to Wipaire. The new company gained a reputation as practical problem-solvers for well-known pilot pain points.

Wip says it was a natural strategy: “My dad was a born mechanic. He was a tinkerer and an inventor who built his first airplane, a Pietenpol.” In addition to a handful of ratings, including seaplane instructor, Wip trained as an aeronautical engineer. He says, “The main thing that really got Wipaire moving was the amphibious floats we crated for the Cessna 206,” when at the time, “none of our competitors had such a thing.” Wipaire pretty much owned that market segment for about 10 years.

The company began creating metal floats for larger aircraft such as Beavers before eventually moving on to the Cessna Caravan, which created long-term success. “In 1985, we moved on to Twin Otters.” Wip, like his dad, is the guy who created many of the company’s somewhat radical solutions. “I’m a brainstorming sort of the guy,” Wip says. “[But today], I come up with an idea, sketch it out, and then let the other guys crunch the numbers to see if it will work.”

Like his dad before him, Wip’s son Chuck, now the company president and CEO, grew up around Fleming Field. “I turned 16, got a driver’s license and started working at the airport, turning wrenches on airplanes. I soloed on my 16th birthday, before I even got my driver’s license, in fact.” Chuck earned his private pilot certificate on his 17th birthday. “I took my private check ride in a 172 on wheels, and then went down to the seaplane base and got in a PA-11 on floats and did my seaplane rating. And then I moved on to my engineering education.”

He mentioned one possible regret along the way: “I never did take the A&P practical test.” Chuck has managed to keep Wipaire’s practical problem-solving philosophy intact, but he says: “Honestly, it’s just entrepreneurship because my dad enjoys dreaming up new products and stuff. I don’t get into that a whole lot myself at this point. For me, though, it’s really obvious when Wip comes up with these things and how he does it. He just kind of looks at an airplane and decides what it really needs most.”

Chuck says it’s also about being smart about the company’s design efforts for Wip’s ideas, such as “using good products for primer and good quality paint.” Good design is also about thinking ahead to lubrication where it’s needed, “because preventative maintenance is the best way to reduce corrosion, as well as watching for galvanic corrosion.” In this case, galvanic corrosion happens when two dissimilar metals begin to react with each other while immersed in water. “People ask us why we don’t use stainless-steel hydraulic fittings everywhere, for instance,” Chuck says. “We tell them that screwing those stainless-steel fittings to an aluminum bulkhead fitting will make those fittings corrode relatively quickly.”

Chuck explains: “The company’s grown on us a lot as a family over the last 10 to 15 years, so I’ve spent a lot of time building a more professional leadership team. I’ve also tried to run a very fun company; we’re just not a suit-and-tie kind of place.” Chuck says his business expertise evolved from mentorship and jumping into the deep end of the pool. He says that exposed the places the company needed outside expertise to grow, so he hired a vice president of operations to run the manufacturing and the services side of the company, as well as a separate vice president for business services who covers the administrative, HR and financial sides of the house, a vice president of engineering, and a vice president of sales and marketing.

Creating the Fire Boss Mod

People who live in regions of the world prone to wildfires have become used to seeing giant C-130 or DC-10 aircraft swoop into areas trying to douse the flames of a major fire by precisely dumping thousands of gallons of water in one spot. Those big aircraft demand a considerable amount of time and money to load and dispatch to a site for a 30-second fire run, however, which is why they’re typically brought in when a huge fire is already raging out of control.

The people at Wipaire saw a need—to create a less expensive water bomber to help squelch a fire while it’s still small—as another one of those consumer pain points—and went to work to create a solution. Their answer was the Fire Boss modification to a stock Air Tractor AT-802 powered by a 1,600 hp Pratt & Whitney Canada turboprop. While aircraft able to skim the surface of a nearby lake or river to use that water on a blaze aren’t new, the use of a much less expensive single-engine aircraft like the Air Tractor is.

Once Wipaire-designed floats are installed on the Air Tractor 802, the aircraft is ready to attack a local blaze with very little outside help or preparation. The pilot lightly skims the surface of the water, and the Wipaire-designed scoops quickly fill the airplane’s big water tank to help a local agency try and contain a fire while it’s still small. Air Tractor’s website says an 802F Fire Boss scooper air tanker can “deliver up to 14,000 gallons per hour for extended attack or ground support when using a local water source.” Slightly more than 110 Fire Boss aircraft are in use around the world in Canada, Chile, Argentina, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Australia, Indonesia and Spain, as well as in the US.

As usual, there’s a story behind the creation of the Fire Boss. Wip says he once approached Air Tractor founder Leland Snow with the idea of adding Wipaire’s unique brand of floats to the airplane to transform it into a fire bomber. “He kind of laughed at the idea at first.” Surprisingly, Wip doesn’t seem to take people scoffing at his ideas personally and actually accepts them as a challenge. “We took a set of Twin Otter floats and chopped them down, and figured out how to add the scoops,” he says. “It took about a little over a year to complete the STC.”

People quickly saw the value in the Fire Boss airplanes and bought them, but then, Wip says: “Pratt came out with a bigger engine that we put in, and that made a really good airplane. They’ve been selling really good ever since all over the world.” He explains a fill-up run from the cockpit. “The pilot touches down on the water at about 60 to 70 knots. They lower the scoops and go to full power, and just sit there at that speed scooping water until they get the amount they need, and then just take off and head to the fire. The pilot never slows down. They can grab 800 gallons in about 13 seconds.”

The forces involved in fast taxiing at 60 or 70 knots and adding nearly 5,000 pounds of weight in just a few seconds demands some serious training to develop a competent fire-bomber pilot. Most Fire Boss customers use pilots with previous Air Tractor time, even if they’d never flown fire suppression, believing it’s easier to train them than to try and teach a fire-bomber pilot how to fly the Fire Boss from zero time.

For many years, Wipaire handled the training of new Fire Boss pilots, which sometimes presented its own challenges because the standard aircraft is a single seat. Wip remembers teaching a Spanish pilot to fly the airplane. The pilot didn’t understand English well enough to fully comprehend the training. The trick turned out to be the instructor pilot sitting in a boat on the water with a handheld radio and a translator next to him. The instructor gave the instructions to the translator, who then repeated them in Spanish to the pilot. Wip says, “The time delay made for some interesting instructional sessions, but we ended up getting through it.”

Looking Ahead

Another new project for Wipaire is working toward certification of carbon-fiber composite floats for the Twin Otter fleet. Wip says, “We just got finished with all the structural testing.” He says these sealed floats offer a few operational advantages. “The pilot no longer needs to pump them for water before each flight. They’ll also weigh 350 pounds less than metal floats, and they’re actually stronger too.” Wip says the engineering staff tested them to 2.5 times their maximum load, and they didn’t break. The FAA only requires testing to 1.5 times the maximum load to achieve certification.

Today, Wipaire builds floats for the venerable Piper Cub (Wipaire model 2100), the Cessna 172 and the Maule series (model 2350), the Cessna 180/182 (model 3000), the de Havilland Beaver (model 6100), the Cessna Caravan series (model 8750), the Air Tractor AT-802 that becomes the Fire Boss aircraft (model 10,000), and the de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter, including the updated version now produced by Viking in British Columbia. After 35 years, Wipaire remains the only company delivering floats for the Cessna Caravan series.

The company also created a host of other aircraft accessories, such as the in-house-designed laser gear advisory system to help stem the number of gear-down water landings, the industry’s most prominent source of accidents. For the Cessna Caravan, Wipaire produces an extended baggage modification, a single-point refueling system to speed turns for commercial operators, new interior options, gross weight increases, boarding ladders and steps, and the Blackhawk engine upgrade that swaps the Caravan’s stock PT-6A-114 for a brand-new 140. There are also gross-weight increases for other aircraft (such as the Super Cub), single-point refueling and a three-blade prop upgrade for the Quest Kodiak, and an executive interior upgrade for the Twin Otter. The company also recently expanded its paint booth at KSGS.

Looking to the future, Chuck says: “I don’t think that we’re any different than anyone else in the current environment with COVID and unrest and everything else. You’re kind of always worried about what the world economy’s doing and what it means to us, so we’re wading our way through it all and adjusting as we need to in order to make sure we’re not caught off guard.” So, how has Wipaire managed to produce such a wide range of products aimed at the floatplane world? Wip smiles and says, “We like to screw around with airplanes.” Clearly, the 199 people the company employs love supporting that strategy.

Best Practices for Floatplane Operations and Maintenance

Aircraft owners probably fear discovering corrosion on their land-based airplanes more than just about anything else, short of bending their airplanes along the way. When an airplane regularly operates in the water, operational and maintenance risks increase.

Steve McCaughey is pretty straightforward about it. “Every day you take your seaplane out, you’re risking that being a very expensive day.” McCaughey is the longtime executive director of the Seaplane Pilots Association and a pragmatic observer of the industry. Remember that old proverb, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”? Harry Shannon thinks there’s no better strategy for maintaining a seaplane. As an experienced A&P seaplane technician, Shannon knows corrosion can be the kiss of death for any seaplane, even when the airplanes are washed down after a flight. He owns the Bartow, Florida-based Amphibians Plus maintenance shop.

Of all the demons waiting to eat a seaplane alive, nothing is much worse than salt water, Shannon says, especially the warm salt water found in the Caribbean. “It acts a little like warm battery acid.” Aircraft operators in these waters can plan on maintenance costs related to corrosion that are “triple or quadruple those of aircraft used in fresh water.” Shannon spoke to that electrolysis issue Chuck Wiplinger touched on—in this case, an amphib docked in fresh water near Orlando where the water contains significant amounts of tannins. “The main gear actuator was routed near a stainless-steel line because none of the metal was supposed to corrode. But after days, weeks and months went by, we found electrolysis between the aluminum actuator and the stainless line attempting to eat holes in the actuator.” The easy solution was to replace the actuator, but that simply avoids the problem. Shannon says, “The best solution was to replace the hose with a Teflon and stainless-steel braid to remove the dissimilar-metals issue.” One of the big mistakes seaplane operators make is not doing enough prevention. Consider the lubrication issue. “If it moves, it needs regular, repeated lubrication,” he says. “And not just annually, if you expect [a part] to be functioning at the next annual.”

McCaughey has been around seaplanes for 30 years and knows that when you use a hard-surface runway, “you’re pretty much assured you’re not going to drop into a big pothole or hit a tree. But operating a seaplane in an active river where there might be runoff that drags branches and other debris into the waterway, that debris can rip the skin open on the floats.”

He teaches pilots a simple trick to avoid a common issue: leaky floats. “When I park the aircraft on the water, I go back an hour later and re-pump the floats.” He says it’s important to remember how many pumps it took to empty the floats before the previous flight. “Just because the floats were good when I took off, doesn’t mean that I didn’t hit a piece of rebar or a concrete block beneath the surface of the water. If all of a sudden I get five strokes of the pump out of the compartment that I usually get one stroke out of, I know something important has changed.”

Another operational problem: “It’s been a very bad year for gear-down water landings. With a gear-down water landing, there’s a good chance it’s going to be fatal and generally is a write off on the airplane.” McCaughey says the solution all comes down to pilot discipline because some 80 percent of pilots earn their seaplane rating in a straight float airplane without amphibious gear. But most pilots later buy amphibs, he says. “Are they qualified to fly an amphibious airplane? Not really. But they’re certified. There’s a dramatic difference between flying hulls and flying float aircraft. In my safety seminars, I probably revisit gear position once every six minutes.”

McCaughey believes the majority of gear-down landing accidents probably start from the fact that the pilot never raised the gear after takeoff. He says, a gear alerter or indicator should only go off because the pilot failed to do everything they should have. “It’s a last resort. Never depend on the advisory to confirm your gear is in the right position. You should know before the gear advisory system ever warns you—because you’ve done your checklist. Remember, this is a zero-fault procedure.”

This story appeared in the November 2020, Buyers Guide issue of Flying Magazine

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