Gidday Gidday Griffo,
Well we have lots of ways we address this but the key is to make the passengers and myself always fly bare foot.
1) before flight passengers are given plastic bags to place their shoes in and towels to wipe the water off their feet. They do this as they sit on the cockpit still as they enter the ship, when this is difficult for them their partner or I lend a hand kinda like Al Bundy in Married with Children.
Likewise I've got the system down pat so I always enter the aircraft with dry feet wiping myself down as I twist around and plop down.
For water operations I limit the ship to two passengers each with towels and thus have a large towel on the back seat as well.
2) Of course between flights I wipe the interior of the plane, the canopy and outside.
3) I have water absorbent mats under foot.
4) Each day in the wet I spend 60-90 minutes after return back on the dry washing her down. This of course includes the interior where the mats are removed and hung up outside each night and the floor is wiped clean and dry
(my wife can never believe how many towels I go through)
5) When aircraft is down for maintenance I remove interior floor boards etc to let her dry out
6) The area is heavily corrosion proofed - easy to access and easy to spray.
7) The floor boards are wood the structure is metal so there is little chance for corrosion as the screws all have plastic washers on them
8) Sand rather than water is more of a concern so I like to see pax with wet feet because it means they are only about to bring water in the plane on their feet - then we intercept the water, giving them a towel to wipe them down as they sit in the plane and then keep the interior clean by the methods above.
Like anything with seaplanes, the negatives can be turned into positives. You really get to know the passengers as you're wiping their feet and between their legs and they feel relaxed and relieved to see how the Captain slowly cares for them and the ship :-)
Last edited by weloveseaplanes; 18th Feb 2012 at 09:24.