Earthstar Forums

MARK...

What is the situation regarding fitting floats to the Odyssey aircraft.
I found this site (just below) that builds amphibious floats for a similiar tandem aircraft. Surely they are not cheap. Any resource for this in place? Any design already done?
Thanks
RMM

http://www.ultralight.ca/amphib_gear.htm

I found this company.
FULL LOTUS FLOATS see
http://www.full-lotus.com/amphibious-floats.html

Any experience with these folks?

RMM

UPDATE:

Two more companies that make floats.
PuddleJumper looks like a possible bolt-on solution, but they do not list the Odyssey.

http://www.puddlejumper.com/eindex.html

and

http://www.keywestfloats.com/

RMM

Hello
If you go to the photo section in the "Things of interest" you will see pictures of floats and Skies. The Gull 2000 has snow Skis and the Titan Tornado has really nice floats on it. The Titan copied Marks JT2 design. (My plane)
FRed

Hi Fred...
Exactly my point. ~Floats for the Odyssey~
Hope Mark will weigh in on any design issues especially considering Puddlejumper's offer.
Thanks
RMM

Speaking of floats, I noticed the comment about the oddness of the Odyssey and Gull nose wheel pivots instead of the more traditional shaft such as the Titan Company did to the Gull making the Tornado. My thoughts also went back to the inflight nose wheel wobble that the Tornado’s can havet when wheel pants are added to the nose wheel, necessitating their solution with a fin on the pant. When I first went aloft after installing nose wheel pants on my Gull 2000, I was concerned that I might have a dreaded wobble, but no indication, even after stabbing the rudder pedal, and I have tested and flown the Gull at all speeds and loads, even up to about 122 mph indicated with outside static source, but not authenticated with gps. The point is, did Mark give us a really stable front fork with his simple off-set pivot that may be better for stability than the traditional shaft?? Just wondering as I do at times.

Hi
This should work well but add a lot of weight and drag. And expense, I like
the way I deal with the water sports issue. I take along a little
inflatable raft, land on the beach and blow it up and jump in and go play in the
water, but I am a cheep skate.
Happy Swimming
Mark

In a message dated 6/25/2013 8:36:29 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
ananda@guam.net writes:




MARK...

What is the situation regarding fitting floats to the Odyssey aircraft.
I found this site (just below) that builds amphibious floats for a
similiar tandem aircraft. Surely they are not cheap. Any resource for this in
place? Any design already done?
Thanks
RMM

http://www.ultralight.ca/amphib_gear.htm

Personally, once I finally get up the funds to get mine, I am going to work on a water hull add-on similar to the lower portion of the Icon A5 in design (and hand crank retractable gear and water rudder to go with it). If made of the proper materials, it should not increase the weight more than is allowed for water hull ultralights, or since this is an add-on, would this be considered under the float weight rule?

Anyone looked at this as an option, I would love to see a factory version of a water hull kit we could buy, or have it as part of the kit/factory built plane.

People working on Mark's airplane would always be wise to assume that
everything on the airplane is done for a reason with considerable thought
and experimentation done by Mark on the various tradeoffs. So many
builders seem to forget this and modify their kit (and the resulting
airplane) in ways that do not help in the long run.

-Alan