What have I been doing in November, I like the unusual watercraft, and I’ve not seen a Sea Plane on the Water, so figured I’d have a tinker, firstly found a ‘donor’ plane to get me going.
I’ve no intention for this to actually take to the skies, purely to be able to taxi on the water, and maybe skip a bit! so to make it more transportable I’ll chop the wings down to a more manageable size.
Once the wings were shortened I need to recover using solarfilm, not something I’ve done before but its all about experimentation, so after watching a few youtube videos had my first attempt, did not go well, after struggling for more than an hour I discovered there is a thin film you have to remove on solarfilm! schoolboy error every mistake is a lesson!
So to power it I used a powerful brushless motor
And carved a lump of balsa to as a nose cone, might add some exhaust detail in the future if it works.
Floatation is my next challenge, so add a couple of foam floats
A kids paddling pool acts as a floatation tank, the floats were clearly not ‘man’ enough so supplement them with more foam
Even with the foam, under power still not enough flotation, so added strips of cork. and moved the floats further forward, as previously as soon as put the power on it nose dives.
Second ‘flight’ much more successful, started to try different prop sizes and pitches, purely by trial and error, there plastic and just a few pence so bought 5 differing sizes and pitches, will come back and revisit another time.
Windy and cold, probably come back off the shelf in the summer 🙂