floatplane - taking off frozen lake

I wonder. In the EDO ads they show sea planes taking off and landing on
grass. The claim by EDO is that the floats are very, very tough. The
fact tha the weight of the aircraft is distributed over a wide area
probably helps as well.
-Robert

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
ups.com...
I wonder. In the EDO ads they show sea planes taking off and landing on
grass. The claim by EDO is that the floats are very, very tough.

The floats are very, very tough. They have to be. But everything has its
limits. Grass is a lot more forgiving than ice, both respect to stability
(it's not likely to break under you) as well as to uniformity (grass used
for seaplane operations is almost always going to be an actual grass runway,
and a relatively smooth one at that).

That guy had more nuts than brains.

Its not particuarly dangerous, but it isn't very good for the floats.
If you hit a chuck of ice at high speed it may dent the floats.
Possible to puncture. I would be suprised if this guy did not damage
his floats (a dent or two). But given a smooth surface, no ice chunks,
either hard ice or slush or even packed snow, it could be done,
obviously, by witness of the video.

Desperate men do desperate things.

It wasn't the ice, but the TREES that I was commenting at, he almost
ate it. :)

Flyingmonk wrote:
It wasn't the ice, but the TREES that I was commenting at, he almost
ate it. :)

Looks to me that he didn't even make it off the ice. Looks like he got
catapulted into the air when the floats hit the brush at the edge of the lake.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

Flyingmonk wrote:
It wasn't the ice, but the TREES that I was commenting at, he almost
ate it. :)

That's what caught my eye. I watched a bush float operation flying off
the French River in Ontario about 35 years ago. A Stinson, a Cub, a
Widgeon (maybe not theirs), probably some Cessnas.

Their takeoff was obstructed by an island. The Stinson was often heavy
and they would run it up to the island, usually getting it up in ground
effect for a couple of hundred feet, then zoom climb it over the
island's trees and down the other side out of sight. The good ones
looked like this takeoff. Some were scarier.

Of course we couldn't wait to fly out in the Stinson one day. Wheee!

Maule Driver wrote:
That's what caught my eye. I watched a bush float operation flying off
the French River in Ontario about 35 years ago. A Stinson, a Cub, a
Widgeon (maybe not theirs), probably some Cessnas.

I haven't had the pleasure of seeing a float plane in person yet, only
in videos. Anyways, this http://mhs.ryjones.org/Videos/bush-pilot.wmv
isn't you and your Maule trying to pickup those hunters is it? :)