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Ice Landings


Scrapman1959

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Not to scare anyone, but, this is on the Mississippi River. It's a deadend backwater though, with no current whatsoever. the ice is about 7 inches now. We run an extension cord down from our house and leave her on the ice overnite sometimes. Only hazard is ice fisherman sometimes put those little popup flag mechanisms over one of their holes and then go fish another hole 200 yards away. They show up pretty good though in the white of all the snow cover. When we get a lot of snow we just plow a runway with turnarounds and taxiway to the house. BTW Al, how many hours now on my previous bird? Any issues yet?

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I have never been on floats, but last year was on glare WET ice and there was no way to stop the plane with the brakes. Winds were calm and the tree line was getting bigger in my windshield and I wasn't slowing. Figured i had nothing to lose so i hammered the throttle and went full left rudder. The plane came around immediatly into a 180 course reversal and i closed the throttle when the backward slide stopped. Probably same manner you reverse course on floats I would suspect, with the added bonus of two little rudders in the water. if you have a nice BIG,WIDE, VACANT, icey ramp to yourself to play on some day you can practice the maneuver. It could prove useful on an icey ramp when the wind starts sliding you somewhere you dont want to go. The maneuver is almost as much fun as spinning donuts in the high school parking lot when we were 17. Try it gently, remember if you slide into a curb or frozen snow bank, it could cost a lot more than replacing a bent rim on that 75 Chevy Nova. P.S. Not recommended at a towered field. You are sure to be called to the principals office.

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I have never been on floats, but last year was on glare WET ice and there was no way to stop the plane with the brakes. Winds were calm and the tree line was getting bigger in my windshield and I wasn't slowing. Figured i had nothing to lose so i hammered the throttle and went full left rudder. The plane came around immediatly into a 180 course reversal and i closed the throttle when the backward slide stopped. Probably same manner you reverse course on floats I would suspect, with the added bonus of two little rudders in the water. if you have a nice BIG,WIDE, VACANT, icey ramp to yourself to play on some day you can practice the maneuver. It could prove useful on an icey ramp when the wind starts sliding you somewhere you dont want to go. The maneuver is almost as much fun as spinning donuts in the high school parking lot when we were 17. Try it gently, remember if you slide into a curb or frozen snow bank, it could cost a lot more than replacing a bent rim on that 75 Chevy Nova. P.S. Not recommended at a towered field. You are sure to be called to the principals office.

 

Only if the idea of swimming appeals to you. If you are on the step High CG causes tipping. Once off the step you might get away with it since, by then, you are pretty slow and lower in the water. If you are in an amphibian (not the type with wheels in the floats) such as a Lake, Goose, etc you can turn a lot sharper.

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I figured you float guys used the prop and rudders for turning in and near docks when the wind is having it's way with you while trying to get tied up. speaking of float planes, the Gutmans of Airtime Aviation have another LS on floats headed for Sebring. We hangered it overnite for them on it's return to Tulsa Friday nite. It's a beauty.

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You do use the prop and engine for maneuvering. Wind can be problematic when in close quarters or if in open water with big winds and gusts. Also, a 180 degree left turn using full power can be helpful(?) when taxiing downwind off step when you want to get turned into the wind while coming up on the step in a narrow area. In reality, however, I'm not sure that you gain much, if anything, by doing that, especially in a bigger, loaded plane. On the other hand, with a really powerful, lightly loaded, low stall speed aircraft.........

 

In 30 years of flying, instructing, and owning floats (Beavers, C-180/185, C-206, C-172, Cubs, Lakes) I ran across many that thought they had the answer to the shortest T/O or landings. Sometimes there was much monkey motion, noise and splashing but in the end, usually not necessary unless you just enjoyed scaring passengers and impressing those that didn't know any better.

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In regard to color. The brits in WWII did experiments to find the most difficult color for submarines to spot and subsequently painted their B-24 sub hunters white! I think of how much more difficult our planes must be to see in the winter against a white background.

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I wish I was computer savvy enough to resubmit that ice pic with a little photo shopping the CT candy apple red with white N numbers and maybe a few white stripes. That would show up in the snow.

Just had a question for everyone about how much real difference you are seeing in performance on your birds between say a 20 to 30 degree day versus a 70 ish day. This particular bird I am flying now has a 7 knt better IAS at same prop setting and altitude when we go to cold weather temps versus the 70's. It does show about .3 more on fuel burn too with equal power settings from cold to warm. It loves cold air, now if we could just figure out how to better keep that cold air out of cabin on cold cloudy days.....

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