I’ve been dreaming about flying float planes for most of my life. Especially after sore knees and hips made it increasingly hard to reach the silent lakes of my youth via canoe and hiking boot. I always remember that time on a remote lake in Algonquin Park where a park ranger dropped into our lake in a deHavilland Beaver and paddled the plane ashore. He was there to set up some toilets at a new campsite that wasn’t on our map, but he stopped over to check our permit and make sure we weren’t cutting down live trees.
Since then, I’ve often thought how cool that would be, to fly a Beaver into a lake that was only known to a few paddlers, and after the engine stopped making pinging noise as it cooled down, just listening to the loons and the breeze in the trees. I got to experience some of that on the Alaska cruise as we stood on the float of our Beaver for a few minutes.
Vicki and I were talking about it the other day, and she suggested that when I retire (or it becomes impossible to find my sort of work anywhere outside of Asia), I could fly floats as a second career. A little research shows that there are a couple of hitches to that:
- Nobody will hire a float plane pilot without hundreds if not thousands of hours of float time.
- Nobody (with the possible exception of Twitchells Seaplane Base in Maine, but that’s a long way to go before starting your flight) will rent you a seaplane except with one of their instructors sitting beside you.
- Probably most importantly: float plane flying is strenous work, since the customers will expect you to do all the loading and unloading and dock work.
But before I throw out the dream entirely, I did some more research, and some more dreaming. On the dreaming side, there is Georgian Bay Airways, which as well as initial and advanced float plane training, also has a Career Bush Pilot Program where you get 50 hours of training, including 1 in their Beaver. I wish I’d known about this when I was 20 years old – they hire one or two of the students from this program to be dock hands for the summer, and you’ll get some more time flying both their Cessna 180s and Beavers. They tell me that last year’s two dock hands got an additional 50 and 80 hours flying time.
But on the more pragmatic side, I’m probably not going to be able to do that. But I could at least get prepared – I need two things: a commercial rating and a float plane that I can put a lot of hours into. So I’m looking around to see if there are any other local pilots interested in a small partnership on some sort of float plane. I can’t afford one of my own, but I might be able to swing 1/2 or 1/4 of a sufficiently old Cessna 180 or similar. These new Light Sport Aircraft are tempting, but the only LSA ambhibian is a boat-hull flying boat rather than a float plane, and none of the commerical operators seem to use flying boats so I doubt the flying time would count for much. I’m not sure if I’d even fit in a CubCrafters Super Cub on floats.
Before I get the commercial, though, I’ve got to fly a lot more. I’ve got the minumum hours for the requirements, but frankly, I consider myself a safe pilot, but not a great pilot. I have always flown “good enough” instead of “as good as I possibly could get”. I just don’t fly enough, and because of that I don’t nail my airspeeds and altitudes, I don’t use the rudder enough, and I’m not totally smooth. But I know I can do that stuff with practice. So that’s my goal this year – to get 50 or more hours of flying, and some of that time going out to do real airwork to get more than just proficient at the normal Private Pilot maneuvers before I start thinking about learning the commercial maneuvers.
I always thought I’d get the commercial before the instrument rating; I thought it was a cool rating, sort-of like varsity pilot versus junior varsity, in terms of the standards you’re held to on the practical test. As it turned out, I fly even less than you do and am a long ways away from the required hours.
I’m also with ya on the whole floatplane flying thing. I think they are totally cool, and I’d love to get my rating someday even if it’s just to get it. It’s too bad that Goodspeed Airport in CT closed the floatplane school, that used to be the closest float instruction to you.
I know that Damian DelGaizo who runs Andover Flight Academy in NJ has been trying to work out the details of doing float instruction, but it’s been a tough road. A former NJ politician’s kid got killed on a NJ lake when a floatplane hit him during water operations. Since then, floatplanes have been banned from all NJ lakes, is what I hear.
Good luck on chasing that dream; I didn’t know about Twitchells’ course.
My bedroom where I grew up had two big paintings of float planes on the walls, so I’m kind of imprinted on them. My father did a fair bit of surveying in the far North, where everything was flown in by float planes, so that was the reason for them.
I’m trying to figure out, from my 30-year-old memories of the paintings, what the planes were. They might have been Beavers, but the pictures I’m finding of Beavers don’t quite match my memory. The planes in the paintings were a little smaller, I think, the floats were maybe a bit bigger proportionately, and the wings weren’t quite the same, thoguh I can’t put my finger on how they differ.
Ian, one possibility is that the painter wasn’t being very accurate. Another possibility is that it was a smaller float plane like a Cessna 180.
The Cessna 180 here looks closer to my mental image. I don’t think my father would have tolerated a very inaccurate painting.
This painting would have dated to roughly 1950-ish, which was when my father was up North. Are the Cessna 180s that old, or is there a precursor?
The Cessna 180 first flew in 1952. The Cessna 170 first flew in 1948, but wasn’t used as much as a float plane. Any chance it was a Super Cub? Not as much carrying capacity, but a lot of people use it as personal or trainer float plane. Or even a bush plane.
The Cessna 180 looks closest to my memory of the painting; the Super Cub looks a little on the small side. A 1952 debut for the 180 wouldn’t be too far off. That’s probably it. Thanks for the memories.
Geoff agrees that the Cessna 180 is probably the one in our painting. He came up with Cessna as the maker without being prompted, in fact.
Get your instrument rating before you get your commercial. It helps build hours and makes you a much better pilot. Thus a better commercial applicant. The float rating ad-on makes you a commercial float pilot if obtained after your commercial rating. Obtaining some tail-wheel instruction will also make you a smoother pilot.
Alex Clark
Alaskan CFI and Float-Rating Instructor