Beaver on skis

[boofhead]

Flight training on lakes and rivers, frozen surface with up to 30 cm of snow on 20 cm ice. Weight is close to but less than max. Sea level. Terrain is up to 200 feet of hills with trees above the lake/river elevation.
Flying a Beaver compared with a C185.
Consider that you want to drag the lake before landing.
What minimum distance would you desire between the shores of the lake or along the river?
How much room would you want in order to make a 90 degree turn on the ice at, say, 60 knots tail up?
How would you decide your abort point? How much distance would you want ahead by the time you put on full power to takeoff again?
I might be a bit of a coward with this; I would appreciate input/advice to develop a procedure for this type of training.
I am assuming that these conditions occur in NZ?

[startingout]

try the canadian forum, surely they will know all the answers. This would be something i would be interested in hearing about aswell so will have to follow your thread.
SO:ok:

[ForkTailedDrKiller]

http://www.natives.co.uk/news/2002/1102/chaletgirl/mockup2sm.gif

??

[compressor stall]

Yep - try the Canadian Forum. As a rule though, snow is not uniform. The distances you seek will vary markedly from day to day.

It's about being conservative, and having experience to know the limits if it's tight....

[Double Wasp]

Hey there,
I have not specifically done this on the Beaver but have worked with a couple of other DH products off of ice and snow. For a Beaver I would say a strip length of about 300 metres is a minimum for most operations unless your really light. Once you are good enough you should be able to work with a fair bit less but may as well put in a little for the wife and kids. As far as doing any turning manuevers at speed I would personally be looking for a space of at least 1000 to 1500 metres in diameter. This is all based on a snow packed runway at about -10`C. If it is your first time off of the lake then allow for about double the length and take off with half the load.
Hope this helps.
DW :cool:

[c100driver]

I am assuming that these conditions occur in NZ?


No none of the conditions you were asking about occur in New Zealand. The only ski operation is on the Tasman Glacier with Aoraki Mt Cook skiplanes.