Any float or amphib RAF's out there?

RAF-Andy

Junior Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2006
Messages
3
Location
Burnaby
Has anyone out there modified their RAF for float or amphibious applications. I have dreamt of flying for years now and have looked into the various methods of flight out there, such as trikes, fixed wing, gyro's, et all. Each one has it's pro's and con's... One feature I would love is the ability to take off from land or water. The RAF2000 looks like a cool machine with some great specifications. I would definately be interested in purchasing one if I new it could be converted to an amphibious application.
 
WOW...great thoughts Andy. Where are you located? The British Isles, maybe?!

I don't think the stock RAF 2000 would be suited for an amphib operation. I think you would need a tractor configuration to even consider that sort of utility. I may be wrong.

Welcome to the forum, Andy.


Cheers :)
 
Thanks for the warm welcome Harry,

I'm located in Burnaby, B.C., Canada... Why do you figure that a tractor configuration would be required??? There are many pusher trikes and fixed wing ultralights that are on floats. The folks are RAF2000 did give me the name and number of someone in Alberta that has an RAF on floats, and patented his mounting system. The first time I called I had to leave a message... The second time I tried the number, it was disconnected??? I figure that there has to be someone on this forum who has made the conversion.
 
Adding additional weight & drag down low on a high thrustline pusher machine is a really bad idea.
 
Yeah Brett, I was thinking the same thing...

You would definately want to modify the keel and lower the engine if you wanted to add the floats. I wish I could get a hold of the guy in Alberta who put floats on his to see what other modifications he made to his machine, if any.
 
Andy, I didn't mean that a tractor configuration would be REQUIRED...just that in my opinion it would be better suited for your wants.

Sport Copter has a pusher on floats but I don't know that is an amphib.?!

The amphib's you mentioned are fixed wing...a different beast from rotorwing.:rolleyes:

I've not heard of an RAF on floats. It would be interesting if there were one?!


Cheers :)
 
How comes the guys that are flying on floats are so mysterious ?

When I spoke to the new owner of the Skywheels tooling, Jim Lezie, back when he was running his ad in the PRA mag , He said that he absolutely needed the "plastic" blades for his type of flying.

He told me he has floats on his Air Command & that he likes to scuba dive from it out on the OCEAN !! Well of course salt water is not good for aluminum.

I told him , with great enthusiasm that he must show us & the world what he is doing !!! WELL ?!?!

BTW does anybody know of anybody that has recieved a new set of Skywheels ? That ad really had my hopes up.

Anyone can mount floats but I for one would love to see them used !

How funny ... floats on an RAF & 2 place Littlewing training !

They just don't want anyone to know ! HA HA !!
 
RAF-Andy,

You might want to do a search on the forum for floats and see what you get.

I don't know what the resulting threads will be, but this has been discussed several times before, and every time it turns out that it looks cool, but it's not very practical.

Like CLS447 said, if it's such a good idea, where are all the guys doing it?

I recommend you do a bit of studying about thrustline/CG and drag/CG issues on gyros. There's lots of info in the forum threads.;)
 
RAF Andy

Me thinks the water would have to be very very calm... I have seen RAFs on skis tho.
 
Hey! Something I mentioned in another thread may be the answer. Rig your wheel pants so that once in the air, you can rotate them 180 degrees to use as snow or water skis. Problem solved.
 
Making an RAF pitch-stable on floats would require far more horizontal-stab power than you can reasonably expect to create. If you could somehow come up with a stab that powerful, it would seriously eat into your performance.

A Little Wing or similiar tractor craft would be a better starting point for floats. Even then, you'd have some work ahead of you to retain the design's good pitch stability.
 
Yep. Yaw stability also becomes a factor in a/c on floats. Look at the number of F/W that require additional tail surface, whether expressed as a ventral fin, tail winglets (taillets?) or additional tail arm.

Then, I always had a vision of the guy with the super-duper prerotator, sitting in the middle of a calm lake while his rotor spins one way and his fuselage contrariwise.

Bensen had gyros on floats but since then they haven't really taken off (pardon the pun). It isn't because there's no demand, but because there's no real good way to do it yet.

cheers

-=K=-
 
"Like CLS447 said, if it's such a good idea, where are all the guys doing it?"

Hanging upside down in the water.
 
I, for one, would love to have the gyro be amphib equipped. But, I live on the ICW and have water all around. Only 50 miles to the Islands of the Bahamas too.
So, I am watching here with great interest.
Ron
Ft. Pierce FL
 
Ron K, get yourself a Drifter ultralight with amphib floats. You can't do vertical descents, but it's otherwise pretty much like a gyro and is a sweet aircraft on floats.

They're made right in Sebring.
 
I was just curious if anyone has a picture of an RAF w/ floats?
Would I have enough tail surface on mine?
It seems that it would need a whole bunch of dissplacment for a RAF. 1420 lbs gross take off weight. Would that be 170 Gallons?
Brad
 
Now that Xenon has one on floats <see "Xenon On Floats " thread> ...wonder how they've managed the 'stability issues' when others' have not succeeded <Bensen comes to mind>.
From the video it appears that they have more HS and tail authority, CLT for sure...seems like it rides quite high on those fat floats. This will be interesting to follow and learn from because I wouldn't mind having a set on mine here in the Land of 10,000 lakes....but not at the expense of my life if problems are not worked outl.
 
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Scott Heger coined the following phrases regarding gyro-on-floats. I think the rules are universal:

FLOATS.....lets see

Do you want your high performance gyro to become slow,unstable and sluggish.....
put floats on it

Do you want to cut the speed in half of a gyro that can safely be flown at 100mph.....
put floats on it.

Do you want to go from being able to fly in almost any winds to only in just nearly perfect conditions .....
put floats on it.

Do you want to see what damage can be done to your gyro's prop from water erosion.....
put floats on it.

How many gyros have any of you ever seen flown in person on floats....?

But I bet you have heard a more than a few accidents with them,right? Talk about the accident statistics per flight hour being horrendous.


Are you seeing a pattern here? Take a fun machine, and turn it into a slow unstable pig, just go ahead and put a set of floats on it. Take a not-so -stable gyro and put a set of floats on it, and get ready to leave this world behind. There is a reason floats have not been a mainstay of gyro flying. It is sure not for the lack of water based locations to fly to or from.


Scott Heger,Laguna Niguel,Ca N86SH
__________________
 
Even the (very pitch-stable) tractor Cierva-type gyros can pitch end over end when fitted with floats. There is a famous account of one that went onto its back after the floats dragged it over in the air. The type of rotor suspension on 1930's gyros was somewhat tolerant of negative G, so the machine righted itself without crashing and killing its pilot.

A teetering-rotor gyro will not fare so well when ITS floats induce a forward flip. It will disintegrate, just as it would in a PPO.

It would require some very thorough engineering, starting from scratch, to develop a safe float-based gyro.

It might need a turboprop to achieve reasonable performance.
 
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