Where have you been? What have you seen?
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By Morten
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1503848
Having a spare day in central Florida and wanting to do something different, you don't have to do a lot of searching until you find Jack Brown's Sea Plane Base. Based in Lake Jessie, next to Winter Haven and less than an hour from Orlando international, it is easy to find and offers a fleet of Cubs and Maules on floats, and is happy to do take on tourists for an hour or more serious people who want the full rating.
Neither having the piggyback nor the full FAA license, the rating was out of my reach, but they offer a one-day course which does not give a rating, but does give the fun.

With my body clock still on UK time, getting to the base for the ground school at 0730 was not a problem. Trevor Smith talked me through the material which I had already been sent by email and had printed out. The various influences of wind, waves and floats were explained with the aid of the study papers and a model. The theory all made sense, so after an hour and a half it was time to put it into practice.


SeaCub on ramp for walk-around.

Everyone I have spoken to who have done this says it is a lot of fun, and I thought it was mostly down to the combination of driving a boat really fast as well as flying an aircraft really low... but that was not all there was to it.
Apart from those 2, you also get the fun of landing wherever you want, letting your feet dangle out of the open door, flying by sight and sound (this was a 'normal' cub where P1 sits at the back - the only visible instruments around the guy up front are rpm and altimeter), doing a circuit every 2-3 minutes and never climbing above 500 feet.
Landings and take-offs are exceedingly smooth; take-off has no 'rotation', you just let her fly off at a constant attitude. Ditto landings, where the shape of the floats helps to soften any pilot ineptitude. Especially the glass water landing, where you basically set an attitude over your last visual reference point and then let the aircraft land itself over a period of 10-15 seconds is quite magical.

After an hour and a half, we had visited half a dozen lakes and I had clocked up 16 landings. As it happened, the wind was 15kts+ and it was a bit bumpy once we were airborne. Wind is not really an issue when you land into the wind, but the waves were quite large on some of the lakes and any real glass water practice was hard to do, although you could of course go through the motions.

The initial plan was to come back after lunch to do another hour and a half, but the weather was closing in and we decided to reconvene a couple of days later. This was just as well as my drive back was hampered by severe squalls and gusts which I'd rather not have been up in.

A couple of days later I came back when the skies were beautifully blue and the water calmer, with the wind having turned 180°.

In addition to some more airwork with crosswind landings and some more taxiing exercises, we also took an orbit over the Fantasy of Flight which with their limited opening hours I was unable to go to.


All in all, having a bit of fun in a seaplane is a most excellent thing to do.

The question is where to continue to enjoy this. The UK has limited possibilities for sea plane instruction and, once rated, landing sites are few. France has a couple of places which may be as easily available. Back in Norway I see that there are a few schools, so all is not lost. The list of flying related things is getting longer and longer.
As with most things flying, sea planes seriously scratch an itch and in doing so only really makes the itch worse, of course. But if that is suffering, then what a great way to suffer!

At the end of a day, a very happy customer.


Jack Brown's is highly recommended if you have some spare time in Florida. Friendly people and great facilities, there is absolutely nothing not to like there.

Morten
Paul_Sengupta, Birdyboy1, shortwing and 11 others liked this
#1513145
An interesting write up Morton.
Whilst opportunities for water flying in the UK (England/Wales) are limited, it is much less restrictive in Scotland and Ireland (North & Republic), where most of the rivers & lakes may be used. Also, Aero Club Como offers full training and, being very accessible via low cost airlines, offers a "short break" opportunity to fly around Lake Como and northern Italy. My Scandinavian friends also enjoy the freedom to explore many fjords, lakes and rivers where seaplane activities are growing in popularity.
Hopefully your article will prompt others to all a seaplane rating.
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By Melanie Moxon
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1514685
Nice write up :)

If there were more places in the UK to fly seaplanes I'd love to give it a go; I don't think they'd like it if I landed a float equipped Cub in Hornsea Mere :lol:

Brough used to have a seaplane slipway, sadly that disappeared many years ago :(

If there is one thing that captures my imagination its the majestic old flying boats that used to grace the sky's *sigh*.
#1560598
After an attempt to do this in June was kyboshed by catching the lurgy from my son, I finally got round to doing this today. 22 water landings on rivers and lakes in glorious sunshine and a light breeze. My bank manager will be happy there’s nowhere I can do it back home as it’s utterly addictive flying!

Wonderful place, wonderful people, wonderful flying! Just wish I had the time to do the full rating. If you find yourself with a spare day in central Florida, it’s an absolute must.