Lake Eyre Seaplane Incident 

Hi Tony thanks for your reply, a hovercraft would have been handy, unfortunately, an airboat would not have been any assistance as the lake is not title and can be dry for years on end. Also as we were over 100 km in a straight line to the closest town it would have been a very difficult recovery using a ground crew. What was interesting is that the lake started to flood a day after we recovered the plane which was the second time in that year, which is very unusual. Sometimes it can be up to 10 years before the lake floods. Here's some interesting information about Lake Eyre en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Eyre Cheers David

@David Geers wow, a very tough place indeed. It's a given that situations like yours must be rare in that place, but I can't help but to think that there must be viable rescue alternatives for the area .In any case, none of that would have helped you out since there were no alternatives at the time. As regards air boats, these things are custom made . There are places in Florida which run them large enough to carry more than twenty people, and some of them fully enclosed, so a bit of math, would prove out whether my suggestion is really viable.Still imagination and a bit of know how could yeild an alternative for others going forward. Maybe. And I still don't know if that could have helped your situation, given the distance, evenifthey had them at the time. The flat bottoms are perfect for those soft surfaces , and yeah, a hovercraft is a nice idea too.

Hi Jim thanks for your comment, the pilot of the helicopter advised me that he was at 1500 feet. He also informed me that he thought it may land okay as after he released it. It started gliding back down to the lake surface. Close to the ground it started left-hand bank landing on the wheels and then flipping onto the nose and cartwheeling once. We could quite clearly see where the wheels had touched down and then flipped up on the nose. The hull survived pretty much intact a little bit of fibreglass damage where the wheel attaches on the left side. Cheers David

@@SeareyLSX That's amazing! Would have made quite a youtube video in itself. Almost made it down on it's own sounds like

I wonder if you could have had the helicopter sling the plane as high as possible, with you in the plane, and then do a release, glide, start the engine, and fly away? Thanks for sharing! I would have tried to land, as well. Your story may prevent many such incidents in the future. 👍😁🙏

Hi yes on most Searey's tailwheel retracts. However after the rebuild I decided to make a fixed tailwheel which I think is a huge improvement. Much simpler system and doesn't take away anything from the performance getting out of water.

Yes but he did have his own little adventure before arriving....

I appreciate your comments, and agree with you one should never land on an unknown surface. However too our defence we did contact Trevor Wright from William Creek prior to the flight for some local knowledge, unfortunately most of the conversation was regarding a water landing, however on the day strong winds prevented us reaching the northern area of the lake where it was still flooded, where we were going to refuel with an extra 40 L of fuel in the second plane. Cheers

Hi, one of the reasons I landed was Doug was running very short on fuel and he had 40L on the passenger seat in fuel bladders 20L each, We were originally going to be landing on water but stronger headwinds than predicted stopped us from reaching the northern end of the lake, where we could have landed on the water and refuelled. Doug managed to find somewhere to land off lake and refuel before reaching William Creek. He made a very wise decision and I would have done the same in his shoes.

Yeah he was like F U Dave I’m getting the F out of here good luck...seeee ya!

Yes there was nothing he could do flying around in circles, best that he flew on to William Creek and raise the alarm, one of the reasons we landed was that we were short on fuel to make it to William Creek Doug had fuel bladders on the passenger seat. Cheers

@@SeareyLSX My apologies, I meant that as a question. Doug left you? Makes sense why, you’re a good friend. You’re a good friend.