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Old 14th Jul 2006, 21:47
  #22 (permalink)  
Chuck Ellsworth
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Vancouver Island
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DH106:

The Cat has a very narrow pitch range on the water or it will commence to porpoise.

The safe range is limited to 5 degrees of pitch change..
..

..the best attitude is about 3 degrees nose up...however if you are to nose low it will build a bow wave that forces the nose up, and when it reaches around 7 degrees of nose up the aft part of the hull will force the nose down, once this occillation begins things happen very, very fast and complete loss of control will occur by three occillations resulting in distruction of the airplane.

The weakest link in the operation of a Cat on the water is the nose gear doors, unless they are rigged properly they will tear off if you submerge them in the water at high speed, and that is just about unrecoverable.

That is a very simple and short explination, if you are really interested in learning the finer points of how to fly a Cat get in touch with the Dutch guys, they are very good and are current on the Cat.

Also the group in New Zealand have a very good track record with regard to water operations.

It's not that I do not want to help its just that I am burnt out and want to start living like a normal person and do something besides fly airplanes.

Once again I highly recommend the Dutch guys because they do a lot of water work with their Cat.

Chuck E.
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