Seaplane Training - Day 3

Time to check out of the hotel in Victoria Harbor and bid farewell to this lovely little town.  I had managed to find a hotel in Sidney for my last night - good thing as I had a 6am flight to Toronto on Monday morning.  Back to Victoria International and a quick drive back in the Ford beast, refueled the aircraft and ready to go.  We head immediately to the Lake.  I didn't think of it at the time but I wondered if I had have checked the "find my iPhone" app the night before it would have indicated last know position as Lake Quamicham.

Today the wind was tricky, and according to John, not unusual around lakes on calm days.  Each end of the lake had wind heading toward the center of the lake.  So on approach at either end there was a tail wind.  My first few landings of the day were pretty ordinary as I struggled to deal with the winds.  John also said it wasn't uncommon in this type of intense 3 days training to get a bit of fatigue on day 3.  I did fell a bit frustrated but determined to get some good landings in before the solo portion.  After about 6 landings/take-offs we docked and took a quick break.

We departed again and I tried this time approaching from the North and this time I nailed a few landings.  After about the third good landing John immediately said, "time for me to get out". The great thing about Voctoria Flying Club and their seaplane training is they obviously do this a lot.  So the procedure is John has a hand help radio and he does all of my radio calls.  It's an untowered airport and so he tunes into the UNICOM and does all the radio calls.

Ok now I'm rearing to go.  I get back into the left seat, do a quick radio check, and I'm off.  I have a massive grin on my face but intense concentration as I taxi out for my first solo seaplane flight.  After my first take-off and climbing crosswind I caught myself loudly yelping with delight - first sign of seaplane madness?  For the next 30 minutes I did 5 take-offs and landing "all by myself"!  It was such a blast.  All but one of the landings - where I drifted sideways a bit - I was very happy with.

As I taxied back, which took about 5 minutes - students are not allowed to do fast "step taxiing" solo - I was intoxicated by the seaplane experience.  There are seaplane experiences in my flying future - I am not sure how but one day...  I was hooked.  Maybe it was because as a kid growing up on the Gold Coast in Australia, and zipping around the canals and ocean in boats, brought that feeling of adventure and freedom. Altogether over the 3 days I did 8 hours of flying including 27 take-offs/landings.  I had successfully completed the requirement for a Canadian Seaplane Rating.  Job done, for now anyway.  I know I had only scratched the surface.  With more trips to Canada required for my job I'll be back.  I had that big grin on for the rest of the day.

Driving back to the club we passed the headquarters on a very renowned Seaplane manufacturer and restorer, Viking Aircraft.  Years ago whilst on holiday in the Maldives, my wife and I had taken a 40 minute flight from Male to our hotel which was on a coral atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean.  The sight of 20+ Twin Otters on floats at the Male Seaplane base was amazing.

Out of the many seaplanes I had observed in Victoria Harbor, Vancouver Harbor and by Toronto Internally airport, the majority were either Beavers, Turbine Otters or Twin Otters.  The Twin Otters they now manufacture new, while the Beavers and Single Otters they restore.  Accoring to John they strip them right back and got them, kit them with new avionics and engines. I did also spot many Cessna Caravans as below.

And even one impressive looking Kodiak amphibian - you can see the front wheel in retracted position as this beauty below taxis out for takeoff from Victoria Harbor.

Of course I'm not getting too carried away - I live in South East Asia, where there is very little infrastructure for seaplanes.  I know of one pilot buddy - Les - who flies an amphibian.  Can you imagine a seaplane dock on the northern end of Seletar Airport or perhaps in Melacca, Penang or some of the islands. My short 3 days are over.  I enjoy a long walk along the coastline at Sidney, an excellent meal in Sidney and prepare for my early departure to Toronoto in the morning.

Seaplane Training - Day 2

The Drive from Victoria Harbor to Sidney gives me time to mentally think through what I'd done the day before.  Awesomeness was the overwhelming feeling.  Time for a large coffee and some eggs on pancakes and back to meet John at the club.

The old Ford truck we use to drive from the club to the seaplane base is definitely vintage.  It's huge, built for comfort not speed and includes a fuel tank in the back.

   

Today we do two sorties.  The first we cover (once again according to my logbook): Slow flight, stalls, turns, glassy water take-offs and landings.  We depart out again to the North West, turn West toward Cowichan Bay and head up the valley over the Cowichan River. Slow flight, stalls and turns are done at a safe altitude of 1000-2000 feet.

I've never flown a Cessna before - yes one of the few - so I have nothing to compare it to in terms of slow flight and stall characteristics.  It felt quite docile and predictable which is a good thing.  This part of the training is to familiarize oneself with what it feels like flying slow, usually when you are landing or taking off, and to avoid any inadvertent stalls, and how to recover if you do happen to stall.  Ok, so with that part done, we head toward Quamicham Lake for more circuits.

The lack of wind gives me the opportunity to try my first glassy water landing.  What's very interesting about glass landings is as you get closer to the water, it becomes almost impossible to judge your height above it.  With no discernible texture, ones usually reliance upon depth perception and peripheral vision to start a flare don't exist.  The flare is the act of the pilot to level off just before landing, and let the aircraft gently ease back to earth - or water.  Usually the pilot flares when he judges the height above the ground using visual reconning.  If you descend at the usual 500 feet per minute and not flare (because you can't actually figure out when to flare) you would hit too hard and maybe even dig in the front of the floats and flip over. I'm sure all you non-pilots have experienced the odd hard landing on a commercial flight.  Imagine that, but hitting with the floats angled forward.  Not good.  Here's a recent example of a float plane crash.

The setup for a glass water landing is, at about 200-300 feet above the water, start a very gentle descent of about 100-200 feet per minute.  For those of us that have instrument flying experience it's pretty straight forward - almost like coming on an imaginary very low angle glide slope - and therefore you need a fairly long distance of water to do this safely.  If your lake is small, that's a problem.  John gives me one of his pro tips by suggesting I approach over a creek bed where there is a break in the trees so I come over the lake's edge at the lowest possible altitude.  My first glass water landing was an amazing experience.  I actually got a shock when we hit the water, I had no idea what height I was as we got closer.  Bang.  We landed!  That was super cool.  Another tip for making it easier is stay close to shore and try to gauge depth that way.  Another is look for a boat wake to land on.  Not too big of a wake mind you, that would cause other issues!

After a few more take-offs and landings it's time to attempt my first docking.  With the main pilot seat on the left side, it's important to learn how to dock against the left side of the aircraft, to prepare for solo docking.  To dock you need to approach at the slowest possible taxi speed, take off your seat belt and open the door, point the nose at about a 45 degree angle to the dock, then about 3 or 4 plane lengths from the dock, cut the power and just drift in.  As we approach the dock, I kicked in the right rudder to swing the aircraft parallel to the dock.  Sounds easy right?  By now the wind had pick up a bit so that was another factor to consider.  With some help from John and appropriate aerleon inputs I was able to nail it.  Yes!

In all my excitement, as I opened the door, I bumped my iPhone 6+ that was in my left side pocket. It flew out of my pocket, hit the left side float, bounced up in the air, enticingly close but just out of reach and then, plop!  Straight into lake Lake Quamicham.  It quickly disappeared out of site into the green algae just beneath the surface.  I consoled myself in the fact that I had just successfully docked a seaplane and it was just a phone.  But it did teach me a valuable lesson.  When in and around seaplanes, make sure everything is tight and secure, pocked zipped and Velcro closed.

I jumped out onto the left float, then onto the dock, and held the wing as John deplaned.  We hitched up to the dock with the small ropes that are permanently attached to the float and has a quick walk around and stretch.  The peaceful lake, the grassy paddock complete with the owners own floatplane, was such a sight.  I was beginning to understand the attraction of this kind of flying.  Usually when one regular land plane back at an airport, it's immediately back to civilization, back to the real world. This was a different feeling.  This was like the adventure continues on.  It was a bit the same when I did my tail dragged flying in the foothills of the Sierrra Nevada in Northern California.  You could land on a grass strip and literally camp for the night under your wing.  Brilliant!

There were the sounds of the wind against the tress, a few birds chirping.  A small water ferret of some description ran along the dock and jumped in the water.  Was he going to look for my phone I wondered?  Back in the air we headed back to Victoria International for some lunch.

On sortie 2 we covered: Sea landings and more glass water landings.  This time we asked for a clearance across the Island to the East side.  We initially headed South, then we did a left turn across the peninsula to Cordova Bay.  This was open seawater.   I did a few seawater landings and was able to experience the sensation familiar to boaties of feeling the swells move underneath and the troughs and peaks lowere and raise the aircraft.  Amazing again and a bit disconcerting at first.  It was a very slight swell and not cause for any landing or take-off difficultly but John relayed some of his stories to me of how when the swells get bigger one can time a take-off by launching off a peak.  One to try another time.

We flew further North and through the passage between Maine Island and Galiano Island.  It's an active ferry route for the ferries to and from Vancouver.  So you must avoid flying too low.  These are not your average garden variety ferries, they are rather large.  

Back to base, debrief and end of day two.  Back to Victoria Harbor and a stroll around its picturesque waterside streets and a meal and it was time to sleep one more time before day 3 and hopefully the solo flight.

Click here to read about day 3 training.

Seaplane training - Day 1

I arrived at Victoria Flying Club (VFC) at 9am Friday morning, ready to go boating, I mean flying. The training aircraft is a "Cessna on floats" described here from the VFC seaplane training manual:

"Seaplane Training is conducted in C-FSTY, a Cessna 172E with a 4 Cylinder 180 horse power Lycoming 0-360-A3A 'Bush' Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) conversion. This aircraft is equipped with a fixed pitch prop, manual flaps and Edo 2000 floats. With a 612 lbs. useful load, this aircraft is ideal for Seaplane Flight Training. Because of the Engine modification, performance will be dramatically different from POH published values, as the Cessna 172E was originally powered by a 145 horse power Continental O-300-C. Take-off distances will be noticeably shorter and climb performance will be significantly greater than published. Keep in mind due to the larger engine, fuel consumption will be greater as well."

C-FSTY is in pretty good nick for an aircraft manufactured circa 1964.  It's always kept on dry land at the end of each flying day, and thoroughly washed down with fresh water to minimize oxidization.  If you look closely at the cowling you'll notice the little bump to accommodate the bigger engine.  John and I clean the windscreen, fuel up and do the preflight which includes using a bilge pump to suck water that seeps into the floats!

The seaplane terminal (CAP5) is located adjacent to the Vancouver Island International Airport, and right underneath today's approach path, with 737's, A320's, Dash 8's and assorted other aircraft including a military Buffalo (memories of sitting in the back of the old RAAF Caribou) buzzing over every few minutes.  It's a fun training area, under controlled airspace, close to the U.S. ADIZ (Stuart Island bottom right is in USA) and lots of terrain and man made obstacles, including a high voltage power line which has to be flown under (top left 665 feet above MSL), which I did later that day (a bit freaky at first but kinda cool).  The training area is 10 miles to the North West, which includes Quamichan Lake where the circuit training is done.

Training here is also a bit nostalgic for me as back in 2012 I did my US PPL and Instrument check-rides out of Billingham (KBLI) which is just across on the mainland US.  I remember when doing approaches into Orcus Island I had to call up Vancouver approach, even though I was in US airspace!  Donald Trump would never allow such nonsense.

To get the aircraft into the water we use the truck with a hydraulic lift and drive C-FSTY down to the ramp ready for blast off!  Or should I say, cast off!

Once on the ramp, we strap in, do the remainder of the pre-flight, run through the pre-start checklist and power up.  A good dose of power is required to get off the plastic ramp and into the water and then quickly lower the water rudders (the white fins you can see at the rear of each float).  Without water rudders, at low power, a floatplane is fairly directionless and subject to any prevailing wind.  With the rudders down, well it's just like a boat.  Good job that I have in the past driven a few boats courtesy of my mates Shane and Greg in Australia.

Being within controlled airspace, we have to call Victoria clearance delivery for a verbal clearance, then contact tower for what is termed a "slide" in the direction requested.  Seaplane take-offs are interesting.  For those of us that have done some tail-dragger time it has some similarities.  You start with the yoke all the way back, full power, nose high for a few seconds, gently easy the nose foreword until you feel you're riding on the step (the smaller footprint part of the float), then let the speed increase, increase, increase and lift off.  Well it's not quite as simple as it sounds.  Variables such as wind, the water conditions (swell, surface and currents) and any watercraft or buoys in the area, not to mention water depth and the shoreline - it all adds up.  But that first take-off is a blast.  Due to the reasonably calm conditions the aircraft felt like it was sticking to the surface - apparently something to do with surface tension.  That tail-dragger experience definitely helps a great deal with loads of rudder required!

And the view!

Once in the air, the aircraft feels quite stable.  This is apparently due to the stabilizing effect of the floats creating a streamline straining effect and low center of gravity.  Careful use of rudder to coordinate the turns is necessary to minimize any pendulum effect.  We fly out, climb to about 500 feet and turn to the North, following the channel between Victoria Island and Saltspring Island.  The sight of trees at eye level, water below, it's was awesome.  And being a regular Cirrus driver, with the parachute always available, having the water below any emergency landing is going to be a non issue.  

As we approach the aforementioned high tension towers.  From the VFR chart as I fly Northard, the left tower is 665 above mean sea level (MSL) and the right 1075 MSL.  John tells me to descend to 200-300 feet and stay to the right shoreline.  As we get closer the cables come into view with the aid of colored spheres that are spaced along each cable at intervals.  John says the lowest point on the right is about 600-700 feet.  It was an unnerving experience at first but would not be attempted without locals knowledge.

Now to attempt my first water landing.  Pre-landing checks, reduce power, flaps down 10 degrees, 80 knots, and a normal landing flare and splashdown!  With John coaching me all the way down it was very straightforward but hugely satisfying.  John had figured out the wind by the pattern on the water and ensure I was pointed into the wind.  Figuring out wind direction is tricky and comes with lots of experience.  Several move take off and landings and it was time to attempt by first beaching!  Yes that sounds like fun.  And yes it was.  This is the stuff of dreams - well pilot dreams at least.

In two hours we covered a great deal.  According to my log book: "Aircraft preparation, preflight inspection, start-up, ramp / dock launching, displacement taxi, plow taxi, step taxi, normal take-off, rough water take-off, circuits, site preparation, normal landing, rough water landing, ramping, docking."

Day 1 we had a fairly early 1pm finish and plenty of time to do a post flight de-brief and a few tips and tricks from John.  Due to the lovely late summer weather and the last minute nature of my trip, I had not been able to find any hotels on Saturday/Sunday night in Sidney, so I have to drive into Victoria, about 30 minutes from Sidney (that still sounds weird for an Aussie).  That turned out to be a blessing.  What a lovely place.

And, naturally, it has a thriving seaplane terminal.  Direct flights to downtown Vancouver are popular.

As the sun started to set, I found myself a nice craft brew pub (The Churchill)- and a nice meal.  This pub had 40 craft beers on tap.  I took the small 4x sampler - don't let the perspective fool you - they are tiny glasses.   Us pilot types are pretty lightweight drinkers the night before a flight.

Retired early back to the hotel, ready for day 2.

Click here to read about day 2 training.

When in Canada...

I found myself in Canada recently, and as you do when you're a private pilot, you look into the possibilities of a flying adventure.  Since I have a US private pilot's license, getting a Canadian piggyback license is pretty straightforward.  For those interested check out the Transport Canada website. The question was, what to fly?

I've often marveled at the floatplanes that frequent the harbor of many Canadian towns and even large cities.  Like this beauty:

They even have a large seaplane terminal downtown Vancouver:

I did a quick bit of research (Google machine) and contacted Graeme at the Victoria Flying Club which is based at the Victoria International Airport, Sidney, British Colombia.  The names Victoria and Sidney had this Queenslander a bit confused at first.  I managed to take a Friday off work and scheduled a seaplane and instructor for 3 days of intensive training.

I finished up work in Vancouver Thursday afternoon and took the last flight to Sidney (there's a Cold Chisel song in there somewhere). It's a short flight from Vancouver - exactly 12 minutes in the air - in this hearty Beech 1900 flown by Pacific Coastal Airlines:

I had studied up the Victoria Flying Club's very nicely and concisely written Seaplane Training Manual during the week nights.  New terms such as step taxi, sailing, glass water landing had me raring to go.  The requirements in Canada to get a Seaplane rating are as follows:

TRANSPORT CANADA SEAPLANE RATING REQUIREMENTS: CARs421.38:

(1) Seaplane Rating - Requirements

(A) Experience:

(i) An applicant for a seaplane rating shall complete a total of 7 hours of seaplane training, including:

1. a)  A minimum of 5 hours dual instruction, and
2. b)  A minimum of 5 takeoffs and landings as sole occupant of the aeroplane, except for two crew aircraft, in which case the takeoffs and landings shall be done as pilot-in-command.

(ii) The following exercises shall be included in the seaplane training:

1. a)  Taxiing,
2. b)  Sailing,
3. c)  Docking,
4. d)  Takeoffs, and
5. e)  Landings, and
6. f)  As conditions exist, operations on glassy water, rough water and in crosswind conditions.

(B) Skill:

Within the 12 months preceding the date of application for a seaplane rating, an applicant shall have successfully completed a qualifying flight under the supervision of a Transport Canada Inspector or a person qualified in accordance with CAR 425.21(6) by demonstrating the level of skill specified in the Instructor Guide - Seaplane Rating (TP12668).

A quick drive to Sidney and tucked in for the night.  I slept well dreaming of my air/sea adventures to come.

Click here to read about day 1 training.