If you splashdown in a Lake with the wheels down, the water
will enter the nosewheel compartment and cause some very
serious problems with the next take-off. The airplane will
perform an imitation of a submarine.



"Peter Duniho" wrote in
message ...
| "T o d d P a t t i s t"
wrote in message
| ...
| [...]
| You might read the Exemption as saying that the
reasoning
| behind granting it applies only to the specific design
of
| the Mermaid:
|
| "The FAA finds the structural integrity of the Mermaid
| aircraft is enhanced by its "flying boat" design. This
| design offers increased protection for the occupants in
| event of landing with improperly positioned landing
gear. "
|
| Interesting.
|
| The finding of "structural integrity" would apply to any
amphibian,
| boat-hull or float-equipped. It's almost as though the
FAA was not at all
| concerned about gear-down water landings, but rather
gear-up land landings,
| and that it's really just the prohibition against
retractable gear as it
| relates to the usual landplane retractable gear issues
that they were
| focused on.
|
| If so, I take back what I said about the FAA's thinking
making sense. As an
| owner of an amphib myself, I suppose I might have jumped
to conclusions and
| given the FAA the benefit of the doubt, thinking that they
correctly
| identified gear-down water landings as a significant
safety risk that LSA
| ought to avoid (gear-up on land is usually just expensive,
gear-down on
| water is often fatal and at a minimum almost always
involves injuries). But
| based on a reading of the text you've quoted, it seems
they might have
| foolishly just been worried about gear-up landings on land
and don't really
| care about the water-flying issues.
|
| It will be interesting to see if they extend this waiver
from the "no
| retractable gear" rule for all amphibious LSA aircraft.
If so, then they
| are just being foolishly inconsistent, as usual.
|
| Pete
|
|