05-13
Flying Mr. Piper’s 1930s classic off water may seem straightforward to tailwheel pilots, but has some novel hazards.
Photos: Keith Wilson
The J-3 is an amazingly versatile little airplane that taught thousands of servicemen to fly in World War II, so it’s no surprise to find that it makes a great trainer as a seaplane. And what better place to learn in than central Florida, the “land of a thousand lakes”? That’s where Brown’s Seaplane Base is run by Jon Brown. A trial flight (i.e., dual instruction) costs just $165 a session in a Cub on floats. The full course costs $1,200.
Unfortunately, a seaplane rating wouldn’t be much use to me, since the nearest place I could fly one is 600 miles from my home. However, I used to own a Cub and miss its charm, the dear old thing, so I jumped at the offer of a trial flight to see how one would work on floats.
To compensate for the weight and drag of floats, Brown’s Seaplane Base has modified its J-3s with 100 hp in place of the original 65 hp. They do this by fitting O-200 components to an 85 hp Continental, giving additional power at virtually the same weight. The floats are made from aluminum.
My instructor during my one-day visit was Bob Highley, a tall, quiet man who flew in the Vietnam War and at one time helped to organize the Sun’n Fun International Fly-in and Expo, but now enjoys this more relaxing type of aviation. After a short preflight briefing, Bob leads me down to the water’s edge where our Cub is tethered to the shore (there are cleats on the floats for attaching ropes).
It’s been tied up nose-to-shore, so Bob turns the aircraft around so that it’s facing out into the lake. He hauls it backward until the tail end of the floats are ashore; this enables us to climb aboard without getting our feet wet.
An Awkward Entry
The J-3 has remained popular ever since its prewar introduction. Working my way along the right-hand float and clambering into the rear seat, it occurs to me that many of today’s pilots might wonder why. Despite the footstep on the float strut, and the wing-support struts in the cabin making excellent handholds for hauling myself upward, getting in is far from easy. There’s a high sill to climb over, obstacles in the way and a cramped cockpit. And once inside, my feet are placed oddly far apart, my knees spread either side of the front seat.
It gets worse when Bob climbs in (it’s even harder to get into the front seat) and I have his head and shoulders blocking my view… and not just my view ahead, but also my ability to see the instrument panel. There’s only one set of instruments and it’s in the front, and Bob’s in the way. The joystick seems far longer than necessary, so your grip on it is higher than seems natural. Perversely to modern thinking, the solo position isn’t in front, where you could see over the nose, but in the rear seat.
To offset these discomforts, you do have the most amazing view all round. One advantage of the Cub’s narrow fuselage is that both side windows are close to your face—whereas in side-by-side seating, one window is always “way over there.” The other oddities all come to make sense after a while. For me, as an ex-Cub owner, all this is quite delightful, like meeting an old girlfriend and finding her just as pretty as you remember.
There’s no electric start; the engine has to be propped. Bob deals with that by standing on a float and swinging the propeller from behind. The engine clatters into noisy life just like the 65 hp Continental in my old Cub. Idling, it sounds like a sweatshop with a dozen sewing machines all going at the same time. In flight the sound is quite different, a throaty roar.
I throttle back to idle while Bob clambers in. He’s going to make our first takeoff; mine will come later at a lake with more room. He opens the throttle; we make our gently undulating way across the water, with me marveling at the smell of water rather than grass wafting into the cabin. The engine roars, we lift onto the floats and into the air. He hands over to me once we’ve gained 200 feet, instructing me to keep on climbing at 60 mph.
It’s been a decade or two since I flew Cubs, but the handling and control forces are instantly familiar. As far as I can tell, the drag from the floats is matched by the extra horsepower, for this feels just like my old J-3.
If you haven’t flown one of these airplanes, you may find it surprisingly maneuverable. The controls, while powerful, might strike you as rather on the heavy side for such a light machine. “Ah,” you’ll say, “so that’s why the joystick is so long: for more leverage.” As you might expect from a prewar taildragger, you do need to use rudder with aileron to avoid sideslipping. With this in mind, and in case the floats have somehow altered the sideslipping characteristics, I look for a slip ball on the instrument panel. I can just see the panel over Bob’s shoulder, if I stretch.
“Is there no slip ball, Bob?” I ask, over the intercom.
“Don’t need one,” he says. “You can tell when we’re out of balance from the breeze.” We have the door down and the window up, so a lot of air is being blown in, though I doubt its effectiveness as a slip detector. But I know from experience that if you add a little rudder with aileron at cruise and rather more at landing speed, you won’t go far wrong in this airplane.
When we level off and I throttle back to cruise rpm, the speed settles at 80 mph, roughly the same as a good 65 hp J-3 landplane (although with finer pitch props, lumpy wing leading edges, and a high-time engine, they can cruise as slow as 70 or even 65 mph).
We are now flying over open country at 500 feet, and the view is spectacular. A Cub at 80 mph is the perfect platform for sightseeing, especially over countryside as rugged as this—although it’s not a place I’d choose for an engine failure. We soon arrive at the lake I’m to practice on.
My Lesson
“O.K., Nick,” says Bob. “I want you to make an approach at 60 mph and keep heading into wind.”
“How do I know what direction the wind’s coming from?” I ask.
“You can tell by looking at the ripples on the water,” says Bob.
I make a mental note of how they look and try to keep lined up accordingly. I have the throttle partly closed to aim to touch down on the lake. With the extra drag and weight from the floats we come down at a steeper angle than I remember for a wheel-equipped J-3, so I throttle up a little.
“I want you to round out 10 feet above the water,” says Bob as we get closer. There is a light breeze creating ripples which makes it easy to see the surface.
“You must keep the nose up,” says Bob, now that I’ve rounded out and throttled right back (though with a trickle of power). And then, with increasing urgency: “Up, up, up.”
I am indeed keeping the nose up, because one thing I clearly absorbed from his preflight briefing was to avoid burying the float noses in the water. Since the elevator is quite heavy at this point, I am having to pull firmly back on the stick, which does feel a little unnatural. I can see how it might cause some pilots to relax back pressure at this crucial point.
The Cub has a massive wing area and that, plus the floats, makes it a draggy airplane. It can’t keep station above the water without angling up the nose for more lift and soon we’re in the three-point touchdown attitude and then a little steeper. The stick is on the backstop. Now, courtesy of that high-lift wing section with its ultra-forgiving stall characteristics, we finally stop flying and settle gently on to the water.
“We’re going to stay down this time,” says Bob, “So I want you to keep holding the stick all the way back.”
Just as I’m thinking that landing a Cub on water doesn’t feel so very different from touching down on land, there is a sensation like suddenly braking in a car as the water grabs us and we settle into the lake. We continue to slow down and in no time at all have stopped altogether, with the engine idling—my first water landing!
Before taxiing, Bob tells me to lower the water rudders, which are held up for flight by a cable next to the rear seat; I unclip the cable.
“In calm water, like we have today,” says Bob, “they’ll give you a tight turning circle. You must hold the stick back though, to keep them well down in the water.” He suggests I experiment, keeping the throttle to 1,000 rpm. It feels rather like taxiing on land, where you would also hold the stick back.
“Now we’ll try plough taxiing,” says Bob after I’ve made a circle in each direction. “You’ll need this if there’s a wind, unless it’s behind you.”
Under his direction, I hold the stick hard back and then go to full throttle, then back off to 2,300 rpm. Because I’ve got full up-elevator, we stay down in the water instead of rising “on the step,” and with a large area of float submerged, there’s a lot of drag to stop us accelerating. With all that engine, there’s also a massive flow of air over the rudder. It’s noisy, but I have total control over direction, regardless of wind. I say something like this to Bob, and he sets me straight.
“In any wind over 15 knots,” he says, “in the Cub floatplane, you don’t even attempt to taxi, not unless it’s straight into wind or directly downwind.” He explains that there’s a much greater risk of toppling over sideways on water. “Remember the wind blowing you sideways will put the downwind float deeper, tipping up the into-wind wing,” he says. “If the wind’s that strong, all you can do is either stay put, face into-wind and use the engine to keep stationary, or to gently sail backward to the downwind shore.”
Then there is the fast taxi option. This is roughly equivalent to taxiing a taildragger on land on its main wheels, with the tail up in the air—not for the nervous. Although that was how we taxied the Laser I flew back in the 1980s. Its tube-steel tailspring was too fragile to drive the airplane around on grass with the tail down.
To fast taxi in a floatplane like the Cub, you accelerate until the aircraft lifts partway out of the water (“on the step”). You then maintain a level attitude to prevent it rising off the surface. Bob suggests that I try it, so I do, including making turns.
It is scary to be going so fast on the water—it feels like driving a speedboat—particularly when you skid sideways in a turn. With next to no friction off the water to damp down centrifugal force, the sideways movement away from the direction of turn is very marked.
“Are you ready to try a takeoff?” asks Bob after all this water-sport stuff. I tell him yes, please.
The Elusive Sweet Spot
This begins as you would begin a takeoff in any 1930s land taildragger with a minimum-sized rudder: with the stick hard back. In the landplane this would keep the tailwheel down until there was enough airflow for the rudder to steer, but in a floatplane, it’s to stop the nose of the floats digging in.
“You need to look for the bow wave moving one-third way down the float,” shouts Bob into the intercom as we accelerate. I do my best to see it, while concentrating on keeping straight.
“Now ease the stick forward until we’re in flying attitude,” he says.
I do, risking a glance at the horizon against the left wing tip to verify that it’s lined up. Bob tells me, “Now throttle back to 2,100 rpm.”
Even with reduced power, we are still accelerating because so much of the floats are out of the water.
“Right, Nick,” says Bob. “Try making small attitude changes. See if you can find the ‘sweet spot.’”
He told me about this in the preflight briefing. Apparently there’s one attitude where the base of the floats meet least water resistance. I experiment, but can’t say that I find it. Perhaps I would with more practice. The airplane feels to me like it’s now ready to fly, the same feeling as when a landplane is ready to lift off.
“O.K., Nick, full throttle,” says Bob and I push forward the power lever, ease back on the stick—it takes more back pressure than lifting off in a landplane—and we break free off the water. I set attitude to climb at 60 mph as before.
“Why did we reduce power earlier?” I ask. Bob explains that it’s part of the training technique. You can just as easily takeoff by going to full power with the stick back, rising onto the step, holding flying attitude until you’ve reached takeoff speed and then lifting off.
“So it’s much like a landplane,” I say.
“Not really,” says Bob.
The technique of reducing power to prolong the takeoff reminds me of teaching nosewheel pilots to fly tailwheel when you make them fly at minimum power just above the runway before letting them touch down. It’s a way to give students longer at the critical moment of circuit training, because most of the rest of it—climbing and flying round the pattern—is largely for learning purposes.
“Right, Nick,” says Bob, “Now I’m going to show you what we do when there’s no wind and you can’t see the water surface.” In the briefing, he mentioned “glassy water,” a condition when the surface is so smooth and flat, you can’t see it. The danger is continuing a descent right into the water without flaring, with the risk of digging in the floats and nosing in. If, to avoid this, you play it safe and round out well above where you think the water surface is, there is a risk of stalling and dropping on.
Bob takes the controls, makes a brief circuit and approaches the lake, this time dropping low over the scrubland below before meeting the water. “If you come in low like this,” he says, “and hold altitude, you will be roughly the same height over the surface.”
Instead of descending normally and rounding out, he sets the airplane into a slower descent, maintaining a level attitude. We touch down gently in the water. Landing this way does take up more distance, so I can see that it might be a problem on smaller lakes. As soon as we’re down, Bob accelerates, takes off and hands the controls back to me for the flight back to base.
Bob has more to say on the subject of glassy water. “The other thing you need to be aware of,” he tells me over the intercom, “is that you get more friction from glassy water, so it takes longer to take off.”
“Right,” I say, but it seems that there’s more to follow.
“You can lessen the friction by lifting first one float off the surface, then the other, using the ailerons,” he says, then adds, “But that’s for a later lesson.”
We meander along, Cub-fashion, both looking down at the unfolding panorama of rough country dotted with lakes plus the occasional road and cluster of houses. Neither says anything for a while. Then I ask, “By the way, Bob—why is it called a seaplane rating and not a water rating?”
“Don’t know,” he replies. “We are strictly inland. The Cub and most other floatplanes can cope with sheltered inlets, but certainly not the open sea. Besides, saltwater is very corrosive.”
I manage a smooth landing back at Brown’s Seaplane Base. Under Bob’s direction, I then throttle up onto the step, make a right turn, hold the stick back, and once we’re down in the water, open the throttle to plough taxi toward the shore.
The final stage of landing is the most gentle: 1,000 rpm, down in the water, steering by water rudder, and this takes us up the ramp. By this stage, Bob has taken over; he brings the forward end of the floats ashore. This enables us to walk ashore after shutting down without having to set foot in the water.
“It isn’t safe to leave floatplanes out overnight,” explains Bob, as we walk to the cluster of wooden buildings where the base has its hangar, offices, briefing rooms and restaurant. “You never know what the weather will do. In any case, we beach them when they aren’t being flown, even in daytime.” He points out some trolleys. “Then hoist them onto those and get them inside the hangar. The steel tube fuselage is inclined to rust if you don’t keep it dry, and the fabric and paint keep better away from the sun.”
Caveats and Controversy
Sitting, relaxing over coffee in the clubhouse afterward, I chat with Bob and Jon Brown. They ask for my impressions. “Well, to be honest,” I tell them, “It’s not that different from operating a taildragger from land.”
They look a little scandalized, so I add, “I mean you raise the tail and run a distance before lifting off and touching down is like three-point landing. Even taxiing isn’t all that different.” I mention that fast taxiing reminded me of how we used to drive the Laser around with its tail in the air to save wear on the tailspring.
There’s a momentary “shall I tell him, or will you?” pause—and then they weigh in with their objections.
“The airplane will somersault if you land downwind or try to take off downwind,” they say. “It’s easy to miss a tree or something else floating in the water if it’s mostly submerged. Even boats can seemingly appear out of nowhere, if they’re aluminum and the people on them are wearing white T-shirts.”
Bob reminds me, “You haven’t any brakes on the water, you know. Most floatplane damage is caused when docking. Get alongside something and rudder away from it and you can end up swinging the back end bang into it.”
Jon says, “Powerboat drivers are a menace. You think they’ve seen you and will give way? Think again. Water eats floatplanes, especially the prop. Choppy water can damage the floats at takeoff. Spray erodes even the metal props we have fitted; you have to remember to only rev up when the prop’s well out of the water. Slow taxiing, keep below 1,000 rpm.”
“Then there’s cross-countries,” they tell me. “Remember, you’ll need something suitable at the water’s edge to anchor the airplane to. If you hit bad weather, diverting isn’t quite as straightforward as in a landplane, though in a real emergency, you can land on wet grass. If it’s smooth, you can even takeoff from wet grass on floats.”
I’m not entirely convinced, having operated tailskid airplanes with hand-swung propellers, which it seems to me have many equivalent hazards. But still, I take the point—floatplane operation has challenges that you don’t meet with landplanes—and tell them so.
To change a contentious subject, I ask Jon Brown when he learned to fly.
“Well, my father Jack was the FBO at Gilbert Field next door to here, and had a Luscombe,” he says, “so I learned in that when I was 14. I was going to be an airline pilot, but took over here instead when Jack passed. I meet a lot of airline pilots—they come here for a change of pace—and they tell me I made the right decision.
“I do meet a lot of nice people. They come from all over the world. I’ve flown a good 20,000 hours on water.”
If you want to experience flying one of Piper’s earliest aircraft, I can strongly recommend the J-3 Cub, and one of the neatest ways to sample the breed is on floats. Visit Brown’s Seaplane base—I promise you won’t regret it.
Nick Bloom, a prolific writer and accomplished competition aerobatic pilot, has flown and written about some 100 different aircraft. For six years Bloom was editor of the UK’s best-selling General Aviation magazine, Pilot. His aviation novels include “Ace” and “The Flight Instructor.” In the workshop next to his private airstrip near London, he has rebuilt a Stampe and a Tipsy Nipper and is currently constructing a Currie Wot. Send questions or comments to editor@www.piperflyer.com.
Resources
Brown’s Seaplane Base
2704 Highway 92 West
Winter Haven, FL 33881
Phone (863) 956-2243
brownsseaplane.com
