Videos mostly of the SeaRey amphibious flying boat that I built from a kit by Progressive Aerodyne and have flown for about 1,500 hours so far, and a few others that amuse me.
Maybe you're seeing the Appomattox River, where there's an island just west of I-95. The river is that grey-ish thing to my left--probably hard to identify on a small screen, like a cellphone. Many road maps (Google, Apple, etc.) show two prisons on the left bank, near the island. There's also a seaplane base on the right bank, depicted on the Washington sectional chart. Earlier, I had landed on the Appomattox going east and also on the James, east of their confluence at Hopewell.
It is--but not in "uncontrolled" airspace. That's "Class G" airspace in the USA, where even two-way radios are not required. Some antique airplanes did not have electrical systems when they were built and therefore aren't required to have lights in the daytime, either. (It's a can of regulatory worms.)
I was at a couple thousand feet once cross country just cruising along in the middle of the day and looking at my chart. I saw there was a small airport a dozen miles or so off to my left. I turned on all my lights just in case. I was in a Cessna 172. Then I saw a low wing Piper crossing left to right maybe 20 feet below me. The pilot was wearing a red and white striped polo shirt and gold rimmed aviator sunglasses. Clean shaven. I don’t think he ever even noticed me. To this day he has no clue that we were just a few feet away from making 2 smoking craters.
This one wasn't nearly that close. I had wingtip Whelen strobes and my landing lights strobe, too, straight ahead. The other plane had no lights on at all. We saw each other at the same instant. I don't know what that tells us--other than eyes outside! I have become a big ADS-B fan, though. My iFly EFIS pops up a whopping big announcement when it finds traffic close and closing. Nuthin' today, though.
Good question. In this particular case I knew that the tire was soft but not completely flat. And I knew that there's not much weight on the tailwheel--less than 150 lbs. AND I knew from having had the tailwheel tire go completely flat once when I had to taxi from grass up over the sharp edge of the concrete ramp at the Udvar-Hazy Museum that the airplane steers well with no air in it at all. So I didn't expect any difficulty. It was a calculated decision, and as you see in the video, the landing went well as far as the tire was concerned. The problem was landing with full flaps and insufficient power. And even that wasn't really much of a problem.
Imagine flying a wheeled plane like this…head to cool airports, land and taxi back to take off never getting out…all the great things about being on the water like fishing, swimming, picnicking are missed…shame
Ha! Hiya, "CharlieXRay" (RU-vid ID-ed you in an email). In the Insta360 iPhone app and the Insta360 Studio computer app, there's a control called "Stats" that does the job. In Studio it's on the right side, along with other tools. (You won't see them until a 360 video is loaded.) I've found six different stats there: Speed, Elevation, Direction, Total Distance, Slope, and Route. I have an Insta 360 X3. (A week after I bought it they brought out the X4, which is similar but has a bigger sensor and a few other improvements.)
Hiya, Charlie! The camera was about a foot forward of the right wing, near the landing light. It was a first trial there, using a big, fat mounting pad that shows, partly, in the video as a black lozenge-looking thing. I've since made a better mount that the selfie stick slides into (and out of), so the camera can be up to about 4 ft ahead of the wing. I'm taking it easy with the selfie extension, though, to be sure it's going to be secure in a 100 mph wind. The lenses are wider-angle than 180 degrees, so there's some overlap, and the camera stitches the two videos together in a way that makes the standard selfie stick "invisible." The black mount I used in this video was bigger in diameter than the selfie stick, so parts of it show in the combined video.
From Lively direct to KFCI is 53.1 nautical miles--directly over KRIC. To stay out of Class C airspace (but beneath its outer ring) is about 1 nm farther. Or you could fly direct ABOVE Class C, which goes up to 4200 feet--but then you'd have to descend almost straight down over FCI, which is about 1 nm outside of Class C. But I didn't go direct. I stopped at home, which is well to the south of the RIC airspace.
@@THEDonMaxwell I know where KFCI is cause I grew up in Chesterfield. I didn’t know that Ric is a class C airspace and I knew you lived near Hopewell near Jordan Point area
Fresh water is no problem, but after landing in salty water I rinse it--usually by doing the same things in fresh water as I had done in salt, or by applying SaltAway, or the like.
Glad to see a new video Don. I'm from the area, KFCI to Jordan Point it looks like. Hope to run into you one day to check out that Searey. Sure looks like fun!
Just FYI. Pilot of 40 years here. If you want to do a proper wing over, you should first take a couple of lessons and practice learning how to do Lazy Eights. Once you have mastered that, the wing over procedure will come much more naturally to you. There’s a right and wrong way to do it. It’s not just a 90 degree bank and a 180 degree course change. What I’m trying to say is once you master Lazy Eights, you’ll then know what a wind over is supposed to feel like. Lazy 8’s, Chandelles, and Wing Overs are all extremely graceful maneuvers. In fact, once you know the proper way to fly them, you’ll find the aircraft almost flies them itself. It’s a beautifully smooth, gentle maneuver, that should not require any corrections on the yoke. It’s one beautifully fluid motion/movement from beginning to end. And things like bank angle, course in & out, should never be exceeded or need correction.
Nose up 45deg then 90 deg bank, let the plane do its things, once u are nose down close the throttle and gently pull up that’s how they teach us in AUPRT
Thanks for the report! I don't remember why I chose the reddish color. You're right that white would have been easier to read--although white with a black outline would be easier no matter what the background color happened to be.
Awesome! I usually say "living the dream" sarcastically. Not you! I've got the bug now, so hopefully that'll change. I'm pursuing a career in the skies! Did a walk thru of two schools this week. No more factory work for me! I hope to have my own Searey before too long!
Another excellent question. I don't remember why not a wheel landing--but it probably had to do with ground speed. With full flaps my Searey stalls at about 36 mph, so maybe that influenced my thinking at the time. If the tire had been completely flat I would have done a wheeler no matter what--although at that time my brakes didn't hold well enough for a wheeler to have made much difference. A few months ago I replaced the wheels and brakes with new ones, and now I can keep the tail up to a dead stop--so NOW I'd definitely choose a wheel landing.
