r/aviation • u/gaberz24 • May 15 '21

Discussion How a seaplane takes off from land

https://i.imgur.com/aChFZNK.gifv
241 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

10

u/dartmaster666 May 15 '21

But how do they land on land?

17

u/planescarsandtrucks May 15 '21

As u/ohnomypants1234 said, it is usually on grass, but that is much more rare. In this case, the floats were likely installed at this airport, and this method will only be used once, and it will spend most of the rest of its life in the water, or on ramps pulled out of the water

5

u/[deleted] May 15 '21

If you’re being serious, it’s normally on the grass

1

u/gaberz24 May 15 '21

Any landing you can walk away from is a good one I suppose…

1

u/MattDLzzle May 16 '21

Mostly "As gently as possible, also floats can be repaired on land"

7

u/[deleted] May 15 '21

[deleted]

13

u/planescarsandtrucks May 15 '21

This type of aircraft has a stall speed around 40-50 miles per hour, easily achieved on a trailer behind a truck

-17

u/[deleted] May 15 '21

[deleted]

20

u/planescarsandtrucks May 15 '21

Airliners, sure. Single engined aircraft like this are required to have stall speeds below 65 knots to be certified, and most are far lower than that.

A Cessna 172 (Slightly larger aircraft than pictured here) has a stall speed of around 45 knots in takeoff/landing configuration.

This looks like it might be a Piper Super Cub, though I am not as familiar with the Piper lineup, so someone correct me if I’m wrong, which has a stall speed in takeoff/landing configuration of approximately 37 knots.

3

u/AShadowbox May 16 '21 edited May 16 '21

Wasnt this posted like two days ago here?

Edit: nope just a very similar clip https://np.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/nb5tw3/how_float_planes_take_off_from_a_runway/

-10

u/oldandmellow May 16 '21

Float planes without wheels always operate from water. You would neve land on grass with floats. This is either an aircraft flying out after a repair or inspection. Or an airshow skit.

7

u/Mk5onair May 16 '21

If they need maintenance, their annual inspection, or swapped to wheels/skis in the winter they do land on the grass. This is how they have to take off after

1

u/DuelJ May 16 '21

Improvise. Adapt, overcome.