Evan's "Winter Haven:" Floats in Florida!
Article and Pictures by (or of) Evan "Crash" Wright
Despite my most earnest efforts, flying in December was just not in the cards. For the entire month, it had been 20F with solid overcast at 700ft. I’d been working on my tail wheel endorsement at Morris, and had one lesson to go, when it became too cold for the engine on their Citabria to take it. Flying has always been my release from work, and work had been going well lately. Consequently I was jonesing to fly, and willing to take desperate measures. I was thinking about doing an aerobatics class in a T-34 Mentor in New Mexico, when I read that the entire T-34 fleet had been grounded for the second time due to a wing failure. I would have to come up with another plan. I’d wanted to get a seaplane rating for a while, but Quad City Seaplanes was shut down for the winter, too. Obviously I was going to have to go someplace warmer. Bud Cushing had recommended Jack Brown’s Seaplane Base in Winter Haven, Florida to me, so I called them up. I found out when they were free, cleared the time off with my boss, then called Brown’s back and confirmed my appointment. I ordered the EAA video “The Wonderful World of Floats”, and was surprised to see that it was filmed at Brown’s! I watched it several times and took notes.
Winter Haven FL, is 45 miles South of Orlando, and 45 miles East of Tampa. I flew into Tampa, rented a car, and headed for Brown’s. It took me about an hour to drive it at night. The staff at Brown’s is knowledgeable about the area, so they can recommend any type of hotel you might want. My hotel was about 5 miles from the seaplane base, and while not fancy, was perfectly adequate.
The receptionist at Brown’s had told me to arrive at 8:45am. Compared to the sub freezing Chicago weather, I was in paradise with light winds, CAVU conditions, and a temperature of 70F. I arrived early and wandered around taking pictures and talking to people. It turned out the receptionist had grown up in Hinsdale, and one of the old timers talk about flying into Hinsdale airport 48 years ago. Small world. The main office is an elongated structure built on pilings out over lake Jesse. For an establishment, which has been around a while, the office smelled like fresh cut lumber. I later learned that this was because the roof had been lost during the last hurricane. I thought my instructor would be a grizzled old-timer, but to my surprise, my instructor was a 20-something-blond girl, with a thick southern accent, named Allison. She moved to Florida with her pit bull to instruct at Brown’s, but her dog was killed by an alligator. Needless to say, the wiener dogs won’t be visiting Florida any time soon.
The first part of the training was about an hour of ground school. This is normally taught in a group fashion, however, since I was starting mid-week, there were no other students. I had read the Edo and FAA books on float planes several times, so I used the time to ask questions in subjects I knew I didn’t understand well. The session included an overview of how to read the water, right of way regulations, types of taxiing, and types of take off and landings.
When ground instruction was over, we walked to the dock and Allison decided which plane we would take out. She chose 3470K, a 1946 Piper J-3 on Aqua 1500 floats with an 85HP Continental engine. All the J-3s have “Armstrong” starters, meaning the instructor has to hand prop the airplane. In J-3s the pilot sits in the back, so I got in first, fastened my seat belt, and put my headset on. Once Allison had swung the prop, the engine fired up with a puff of smoke, and she hopped in. Once we were clear of the dock, I lowered the water rudders, which makes it easier to steer in the water. I taxied around a bit, just getting the feel for the rudders. Allison did the first take off and landing, narrating what was happening, so I could get a feel for a plane on floats.
As soon as we were airborne, the first thing that impressed me was how many lakes were in the area. There were lakes of all shapes and sized in all directions. I can’t imagine a better place to have a floatplane. After the first take off, we practiced turns, so I could get used to the plane’s handling characteristics, and then power on and off stalls. The stalls were so mild I barely even noticed them. Flying the J-3 was phenomenal. We flew with the door open and never got above 500 ft during the whole time I was there. With the wind in my face, and the drag added by the floats, it was like flying an ultralight as much as it was like flying a Cessna.
I had assumed that all the training would be done in the same lake, but I quickly realized that this was not the case. In fact, the entire two days was spent hopping from lake to lake, never doing more than a handful of landings in the same lake. Once we were in a bigger lake, we practiced the 3 types of taxiing: idle, plow, and step. With out boring the reader, idle taxi is for short distances, step taxi is for long distances, and plow taxi is for rough water or turning downwind.
Once I was familiar with taxi techniques we practiced the different types of take-off and landings. In a seaplane there are three types: Normal, rough water and glassy water. A normal take off is analogous to a normal take off in a land plane. The rough water take off is analogous to a soft field take off in a land plane. A glassy water take off is a technique unique to seaplanes. Because glassy water provides so much surface tension, it may be impossible for the plane to become airborne. The goal of the glassy water take off is to eliminate half of this drag, by lifting one float out of the water. Once one float is airborne, the airplane will have sufficient acceleration to reach flying speed.
Each type of floatplane take off has a corresponding landing. The normal landing is made power off with the nose high, and fully stalled, with the stick all the way back. The rough water landing is like the soft field landing for a land plane; a bit of power is added before touch down, to minimize the sink rate and the nose is kept high. The glassy water landing is most like a night landing without a landing light. Since glassy water provides no visual cues to help the pilot flare, a flare is not attempted. Power is carried through the landing, and the nose is help high with the pilot keep the same sight picture until the plane touches down. One thing I noticed was that tail wheel experience really pays off in spades when trying to land a seaplane, since the technique and sight picture is so similar.
After an hour of flying, we took a break for lunch, and went up again for an hour and a half. During the second lesson, we practiced everything, which had been covered in the first lesson. We flew over Kermit Week’s Fantasy of Flight museum at 500 ft., and buzzed Cypress Gardens water park. After the lesson, I took my study guides over to the Fantasy of Flight museum and completed the questions in addition to admiring the incredible collection of rare aircraft.
The next day I arrived at 7:30 to practice the glassy water landings. Getting an early start helps ensure the winds are low, and glassy water will be present. In addition to practicing glassy water take offs, I had to land in a small circular lake and do a confined area take off. In this scenario, which can only be done in calm conditions, the pilot circles the lake in a step taxi, then applies back pressure to rotate when the aircraft in a upwind position. The pilot is then supposed to circle the lake, gaining altitude until all obstructions are cleared. During this lesson, I was also presented with several simulated engine failures. After about an hour, we returned to Brown’s for a break. We went over a few remaining questions I had from the study materials, and then went flying again.
By this time the wind had picked up considerably, and was running about 12 knots gusting to 18. We spent another hour reviewing the material from the previous lessons, but practiced sailing as well. During high wind situations, it may be impossible to turn the airplane down wind. However, the airplane will naturally sail backwards while pointing into the wind and the rate of backward travel can be controlled with the throttle. When this lesson was over, we returned to Brown’s for my check ride.
Normally John Brown, the owner of the flight school, conducts the examinations. Since John was on vacation, the school had called in an examiner named Chuck. My oral exam was short and to the point. There were no nasty surprises, and all of the questions and scenarios he posed had been covered in the ground school session. The flight test was equally short and to the point. The wind conditions did not make it safe for me to demonstrate the types of maneuvering on the water, so the flight test consisted of demonstrating the 3 types of take off and landings. Once we were back at Brown’s the examiner congratulated me on my landings, saying that I had done a good job, in very unfavorable conditions. He issued me a temporary pilot’s license, which now included the privileges of Commercial Pilot – Single Engine Sea, and rushed off to perform another check ride for an ATP candidate.
In retrospect, going to Brown’s was an absolute blast. The atmosphere was relaxed , and the school has enough planes, instructors and examiners to never get caught short. Getting to fly in another part of the country was a great experience, as was getting some PIC time in a classic 1946 J-3. I would highly recommend Brown’s to anyone looking to do some flight training, and will be happy to provide any additional information I can.
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