Ever since I earned my Private Pilot Certificate oh so many years ago, I thought it would be fun to follow it up with my seaplane rating. When we lived in Bothell, Washington, we would go down to a park on the shoreline in Kenmore and watch the Kenmore Air planes return home from a day’s work. There are few things as cool as watching a Beaver on floats gliding in for a smooth water landing in the golden glow of “Magic Light”.
Now, twenty-five or so years later, I finally chased that rating. It all started when I began to reconsider how to spend my time once I leave software behind. I figured I’d rather fly planes than sit around the house watching TV. To do that, I’d need to get hired. To get hired, I’d need to accumulate more flight time. I bought a share of the Valkaria Flyers Piper Cherokee 180 and have been building time in it for over a year. While searching for jobs for low-time pilots, I came across a company located in Fort Lauderdale that flies Cessna Caravans on floats to the Bahamas. Ever since finding this, I’ve been checking off boxes from their qualifications. The single engine seaplane rating was the big one that needed to be achieved.
To get things started, I flew the Cherokee to Winter Haven early one morning. I went to visit Jack Brown’s Seaplane Base. I planned to park at the FBO, then walk about a mile to Jack Brown’s, but instead, I asked if the FBO could drive me over, and they said yes!
While there, I walked around the facilities, checked out their maintenance facilities, and talked to several people. It was clear to me that this was a first-class organization. I then went to the front desk and signed up for my two-day training window. I was hoping it would be sooner, but I accepted October 30-31.
On October 29, I drove to Winter Haven after work. I had rented a small over-garage condo for two nights. Finding it in the dark was challenging, but the owner gave me clear directions from where Google thought I should go.
The next morning, I got up early, ate breakfast, and drove to Jack Brown’s. It was peaceful and quiet, and the lake had only the tiniest of waves from the light breeze. I soon met the other student and the ground instructor, and we began our two-hour ground session. I asked too many questions, so the instructor had to rush to get all his topics covered in the allotted time.
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| Piper Cub at dawn |
I met my flight instructor, and we walked out to the dock to start out pre-flight. The main difference to pre-flighting a plane on floats is that you cannot access half of the plane because it is over water. This turned out to be a non-issue, as the ground crew rotated the plane around for me. Another very important issue is water in the floats, so the ground crew pumped water from the floats before every flight. And one more difference is that you wear your floatation device at all times.
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| N46168 at the ramp |
The ground crew untied us from the dock and gave us a gentle shove downwind. I started the engine, lowered the water rudders, and started idle taxing away from the dock. Given that the Seaplane Rating is just an add-on to my existing license, I did not have to demonstrate all maneuvers that a pilot would normally demonstrate. I also did not have to concern myself with communication or navigation.
For the first flight, we departed Lake Jessie and headed to the training area. I was instructed to do some slow flight and a stall, then we headed for one of the many nearby lakes. My first landing was pretty decent, warranting a knuckle bump from my instructor. We practiced idle and step taxiing, and rough water take-offs and landings. Eventually, we returned to the base.
After lunch with the other student, I was back in the air again to continue training and learning the glassy water take-off and landing techniques. I don’t know what happened during lunch, but during this flight, I was wildly misjudging my height above the water and consistently flared too soon, requiring a quick injection of power to avoid slamming onto the water. At one point I asked if I could fly the length of the lake as low as possible so that I could get the sight image in my head. My instructor agreed, so I did it, but in the end, my landings were still not what was desired.
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| N46168 at the dock |
After debriefing, I went back to my condo, dropped off my stuff, and took a long walk around the nearby lake. When I got back, I found that the power was out in the condo. This was not good, since I was planning to read all of the material a few more times and it was just about to get dark. I considered going to a library or coffee bar, but they all closed soon, so it wasn’t worth going. Luckily, the power came back on, and I was able to read and prepare for day two.
Day two started early with a quick breakfast and drive to the seaplane base. During the night, I thought a lot about what was different from the first flight to the second flight. I realized that during the second flight, I was using the trim during the approach - something that I had not done on the first flight. I decided to remove that as a variable from my approaches today.
After reaching the base, I found my instructor and we began our third flight. The flight was going pretty well, but not perfect. After two and a half hours, I was getting hot and tired, and I was ready to return to the base.
My next flight was supposed to be my check ride, but I felt like I still had some things to work out. There was not enough time to fly again and take the check ride, so I decided to use my next flight time window to fly with my instructor and reschedule the check ride for another day. While I was busy with the scheduler, the Cessna was out flying with another student. When it returned, we realized that all the planning was unnecessary because the Cessna had a large crack in the spinner. The plane was now grounded until the spinner could be replaced. I worked with the scheduler and arranged to continue with a flight on Friday, November 8.
During the week of November 4, Susan got a call from her sister, urging her to go to Virginia. I put her on a commercial flight to Richmond the next morning and wondered if I would need to fly home, too. As a result, I was unable to focus on flying, so I rescheduled my seaplane flight until Thursday, November 14.
On Thursday, I drove back to Winter Haven to continue my training. After flying for an hour, I felt that I was ready for the check ride, so I said that I wanted to return to the base. My instructor asked me if I was sure, and I said, "Yes."
Back at the base, my instructor and I sat down to debrief the flight. I was mentally preparing myself to take the check ride, but he had other ideas. He pointed out that we still had several maneuvers to practice before he would sign me off. If I'd known he felt this way, I might have considered continuing the previous flight. Instead, I had to reschedule my check ride for a later time. After a long discussion with the scheduler, I planned two flights for Saturday, November 16.
On Saturday, Susan and I drove to Winter Haven, hopefully for the final time. My first flight went very well, and my confidence finally started to build. On the way back to base, I noticed a water park below us and descended to take a closer look. My instructor told me that we were flying past Legoland.
After a quick circle around the park, my instructor guided me toward Lake Winterset. The lake he pointed out had a much smaller lake attached to it with a narrow canal. He wanted me to land in the small lake and use the canal as the landing lane. Once I saw the canal and the small lake, I looked at him like he was crazy. He said that he was serious, so I set up for a normal approach to the small lake. During the approach, a pontoon boat entered the canal, so I did a go-around. I soon entered the downwind again, and this time the landing lane was clear of boaters. I continued the approach and splashed down in the small lake, then shot through the canal like gas through a funnel, settling into an idle taxi in the larger lake. This turned out the be the final shot of confidence that I needed before taking the check ride.
Back at the base, we did our normal debrief, then Susan and I went to lunch. After lunch, I met my examiner, and we started our discussion. He asked me real-life, scenario-based questions about how I would handle various situations. Some of his questions were quite humorous and I had to ask him to stop making me laugh because I was trying to concentrate.
After the oral part was complete, we headed out to the ramp. The Cessna was waiting for us and the ground crew was sumping the floats. I opened the door and found my floatation device. I asked the examiner if he had his, and he asked if he needed it. This led into a brief discussion about the differences between the FAA rules and the Coast Guard rules. Finally, he asked me if I wanted him to wear it, and I said, "Yes". He respected my Pilot In Command decision making and went to get it.
With the preflight complete, the ground crew shoved us away from the ramp and I started the engine. We taxied out into the lake and determined the wind direction and chose a takeoff lane. The lane was shorter than I'd like, so we started the takeoff run with a slight crosswind, then turned upwind, then turned crosswind again to avoid taking off into the Winter Haven traffic pattern, lifting the right float out of the water before becoming airborne. He pointed me to the north and we flew over to Lake Mattie, where I did all the various types of landings, take-offs, and taxiing techniques. During the glassy water takeoff, the examiner reduced the power slightly to simulate the extra drag caused by smooth water. It was very enlightening to see how much longer the take-off run took in this condition.
In less than an hour, we completed everything that the examiner wanted to see, so we returned to the base. On my approach to Lake Jessie, he told me to land within 100 feet of the buoy in the middle of the lake. I had seen the buoy on previous flights, but I couldn't see it during the approach. He guided me toward it until I finally saw it and I splashed in right beside it and step-taxied toward the base. I idle taxied up to the ramp, then cut the engine for the final 10-foot drift.
Back at the base, we debriefed the flight. He pointed out that I need to work on my coordination, but other than that, I did well. He handed me a package that contained a printed certificate, and he signed my logbook. I am now a Commercial Seaplane pilot.
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| Flight path of the check ride |
Flight Time: 8.2 hours
Total Time: 650 hours
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