Meanwhile, in Canada...

[GrauGeist]

Saw this video this morning, of a trailer-launched 185 floatplane at Saskatoon's airport.

 

[Shinpachi]

Awesome attempt

 

[rochie]

they short of water or something ?

 

[bobbysocks]

works well when there is no water around.

 

[GrauGeist]

From what I've heard (and this is NOT official), they land on the grass median and then load it on the trailer to be transported to the shop.

There's several other videos showing similar trailer-mounted T/O from various other locations - not surprising that the majority of those are from Canada, too.

 

[Gnomey]

As you do...

 

[bobbysocks]

I guess you could skid one in on the grass...maybe set up for a short of soft field landing. would be better if the grass was wet though I would think. you have my curiosity peaked on this one...will have to dig deeper on the subject.

 

[Old Wizard]

 

[Wayne Little]

Interesting option....

 

[at6]

Good video. Like the fact that 185 is an older model with a more attractive vertical fin. The shark fin really detracted from the beauty of the Cessna series aircraft.

 

[GrauGeist]

I guess you could skid one in on the grass...maybe set up for a short of soft field landing. would be better if the grass was wet though I would think. you have my curiosity peaked on this one...will have to dig deeper on the subject.

Considering that the floats are built fairly rugged for less-than-ideal conditions, I would imagine that landing on grass with them would be easier than landing a glider with skids.

Or for that matter, it would be a heck of alot nicer than landing the Me163 or the Ar234A

 

[Crimea_River]

Not so sure. They at least had sprung skids.

 

[Airframes]

I need new glasses ....... i read that as sprung kids - BOING !!!

 

[GrauGeist]

The floats present a much larger surface area than a single skid (or in the Ar234A's case - 3)

I searched for "floatplane landing on grass" and got tons of results - so it appears that it's not uncommon for them to grass-land at an airport for service and such.

Here's a good one that Jan might appreciate - a Swedish 185 comes in for a grass landing and has music and people talking about stuff in Swedish. Don't think the music is ABBA, though...

 

[GrauGeist]

Just came across a great video of a J-3 on floats taking off from a dolly (again, much like the Me163 or Ar234), you can see the dolly fall away as it lifts off.

Even more interesting, is the gentleman filming this video is a WWII vet, having flown 32 missions into Germany with a Lancaster and then even flew the Lancaster back to Canada after the war.

 

[bobbysocks]

thanks for the info. not being near any float planes I never even ventured a thought about this subject....very interesting.