Landing seaplane on the Thames?
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The fact that a plane is able to land on a body of water does not mean it should. Wave height notwithstanding, I could fit my flying boat (or a Lake) onto several places on the Thames, but in practicality, attempting it would be a really unpleasant thing to do. Although the water is your forced landing area, there is not enough to allow safe operations with provision for a forced landing. I would be nervous as heck trying that, particularly more than once.
The water is the other thing. Whenever I have taken the water taxi on the Thames, is has been very busy, and the water very rough. Seaplanes do poorly slaloming between boats on short final. And super imposed boat wakes are a nightmare, toward being fatal.
Once on the water, is there any facility which would accommodate a seaplane?
In Canada, the equivalent Thames landing would break a few rules, one being an air regulation that landing within the incorporated boundaries of a town/city, other than at an aerodrome is prohibited. This is a rule I tend to agree with, the risks are just much too high, should something go wrong.
Water flying is better kept to areas which are not served by facilities, and which tend to have fewer people around to complain!
No. The step turn required to do this is very risky in a floatplane. Circular takeoffs and landings are very high skill. It's bad enough trying to get the student to keep the ball in the middle landing straight ahead, so as not to skid onto the water. Way much worse trying to get them to do it safely! Much too easy to roll a floatplane over doing a step turn. The flying boat does it much better, but still demands skill.
The centrifugal force wants to roll a floatplane out of the turn, and the wind from the wrong side can make this much worse. There may not be enought aileron to hold the one float out far enough around at the increasing speed. , and you may be lifting off in a skid, which is very un nerving near stall speed.
The flying boat must be kept more level, so you don't dig in a wingtip float. It will do a tighter step turn, and safely do these turns at faster speeds than a floatplane, but will be very much in a skid when you get airborne, and tend to skip off to the side, when the keel no longer holds them on the desired path.
Most floatplane training schools I know of actually prohibit all step taxiing, let alone step turns, in they planes, as they are not vital enough for their much greater risk.
The water is the other thing. Whenever I have taken the water taxi on the Thames, is has been very busy, and the water very rough. Seaplanes do poorly slaloming between boats on short final. And super imposed boat wakes are a nightmare, toward being fatal.
Once on the water, is there any facility which would accommodate a seaplane?
In Canada, the equivalent Thames landing would break a few rules, one being an air regulation that landing within the incorporated boundaries of a town/city, other than at an aerodrome is prohibited. This is a rule I tend to agree with, the risks are just much too high, should something go wrong.
Water flying is better kept to areas which are not served by facilities, and which tend to have fewer people around to complain!
Getting a float rating should include flying curved approaches and takes off. It has to because as you have noted rivers are rarely straight.
The centrifugal force wants to roll a floatplane out of the turn, and the wind from the wrong side can make this much worse. There may not be enought aileron to hold the one float out far enough around at the increasing speed. , and you may be lifting off in a skid, which is very un nerving near stall speed.
The flying boat must be kept more level, so you don't dig in a wingtip float. It will do a tighter step turn, and safely do these turns at faster speeds than a floatplane, but will be very much in a skid when you get airborne, and tend to skip off to the side, when the keel no longer holds them on the desired path.
Most floatplane training schools I know of actually prohibit all step taxiing, let alone step turns, in they planes, as they are not vital enough for their much greater risk.
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Your experience of float flying schools differs significantly from mine. At all three I have attended, step taxiing has been taught - it is after all an essential skill.
The post rating training from all included curving and circular take-off and landing. The commercial rating from two of the schools had a significant amount of 'confined area' operations as well.
Landing at a waterdrome within city limits in no way reduces the amount of wash or waves. Judging where and when it is sensible to do so was a fundamental part of the training I did.
The Thames is pretty busy - but much like any motorway or trunk road there are periods when nothing is happening. In the past floatplanes have landed outside the Houses of Parliament, "security" precludes that these days but in comparison with many European rivers the Thames is fairly quiet a lot of the time.
The post rating training from all included curving and circular take-off and landing. The commercial rating from two of the schools had a significant amount of 'confined area' operations as well.
Landing at a waterdrome within city limits in no way reduces the amount of wash or waves. Judging where and when it is sensible to do so was a fundamental part of the training I did.
The Thames is pretty busy - but much like any motorway or trunk road there are periods when nothing is happening. In the past floatplanes have landed outside the Houses of Parliament, "security" precludes that these days but in comparison with many European rivers the Thames is fairly quiet a lot of the time.
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There was a pilot magazine piece which showed how they cleared a path through the Thames debris to allow Keith Sissons to use that C180 for the movie scenes in the picture I posted. The debris would be a factor for sure. Waves, boat wakes, salt, traffic, tides etc can be managed with experience. I've been in a few towns on the Shannon system, and I know guys who have been in Dublin port, limerick, Galway, Cobh etc etc. It can be done but it needs lots of things to go your way. Things never go according to plan all of time, especially in a seaplane....
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Your experience of float flying schools differs significantly from mine. At all three I have attended, step taxiing has been taught - it is after all an essential skill.
The post rating training from all included curving and circular take-off and landing. The commercial rating from two of the schools had a significant amount of 'confined area' operations as well.
The post rating training from all included curving and circular take-off and landing. The commercial rating from two of the schools had a significant amount of 'confined area' operations as well.
Certainly step taxiing is a valuable skill, and I do it often, but in a floatplane, with caution. I'll ask at the local float flying school what they do train for this, but I think I recall that solo rental step taxiing was prohibited in years past.
Having looked at the Thames on Google earth to remind myself (its bee a few years since I was there), there are a few places I could get in and out happily space wise, but I still would feel uneasy traffic, and built up area wise. There are some things which are possible, which might not be worth the cumulative risk - it looks to me that landing on the Thames might be one of them. We floatplane pilots do ourselves no favours, letting the public see the planes doing things they see as intrusive or unsafe in a built up area.
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Thames....ish
It wasn't that long ago that a twin otter (I think!) was doing pleasure flights from/to the Victoria dock (very close to London City Airport) as part of an exhibition at ExCeL.
However that is a much more managed environment for water take-offs/landings than a stretch of the actual river. It did, of course, require considerable co-ordination with both the management authority for the royal docks, the airport and the approach unit.
However that is a much more managed environment for water take-offs/landings than a stretch of the actual river. It did, of course, require considerable co-ordination with both the management authority for the royal docks, the airport and the approach unit.
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Right next to LCY is a dock (Victoria?) where the water is calm and with no traffic. Even better, the seaplanes could do the ILS approach into LCY, then sidestep and land in water at DH. Never gonna happen of course, because it's Europe. That would be way too efficient/pleasurable/useful/business friendly etc.
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At the end of the day you ex-colonials have to understand that British air is so much more complicated than those barren ex-colonies, that it is simply completely impractical to carry out the undisciplined and chaotic operations that you can get away with in those simple and vast empty spaces.
There are millions of NIMBYs and every official body is dedicated to ensuring that high level of health and safety standards are imposed on even the simplest of operations - there is no such thing as too much safety!
To be fair the old UK chart marked water aerodromes were withdrawn from the charts after the CAA removed the original requirement for fire and rescue capabilities and then finally removed the requirement for waterdromes to be 'declared' areas for training. But the weight of officialdom we suffer from is pretty severe, you only have to know the lengths that the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority went to, to ban seaplane operations to understand the constraints - without all the practical problems of finding smooth-ish, debris free water and somewhere to dock.
That latter point is actually the killer, having used a couple of boat marinas in Canada for floatplanes, it is often much more difficult and fraught than just finding a beach or a ramp. The number of landing areas where a seaplane would not come to harm if left on the Thames is probably zero, meaning that mooring and boat transfer would be the only method......
There are millions of NIMBYs and every official body is dedicated to ensuring that high level of health and safety standards are imposed on even the simplest of operations - there is no such thing as too much safety!
To be fair the old UK chart marked water aerodromes were withdrawn from the charts after the CAA removed the original requirement for fire and rescue capabilities and then finally removed the requirement for waterdromes to be 'declared' areas for training. But the weight of officialdom we suffer from is pretty severe, you only have to know the lengths that the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority went to, to ban seaplane operations to understand the constraints - without all the practical problems of finding smooth-ish, debris free water and somewhere to dock.
That latter point is actually the killer, having used a couple of boat marinas in Canada for floatplanes, it is often much more difficult and fraught than just finding a beach or a ramp. The number of landing areas where a seaplane would not come to harm if left on the Thames is probably zero, meaning that mooring and boat transfer would be the only method......
Well the good folks in Seattle enjoy the wonderful seaplane services of Kenmore Air from the up town seaplane dock on Lake Union....with Turbine Otters being the most common ride.
Landing and taking off between sail boats, canoes, kayaks and pleasure boats right in the middle of this great city is a wonderful experience
I guess the main problem with an operation in London would be viable routes. The Pacific North West is not exactly short of watery destinations....although how about Tower Bridge and/or Canary Wharf to Wraysbury or King George V reservoir and then a 5 minute transfer to T5. Might work for the city boys and girls?
Landing and taking off between sail boats, canoes, kayaks and pleasure boats right in the middle of this great city is a wonderful experience
I guess the main problem with an operation in London would be viable routes. The Pacific North West is not exactly short of watery destinations....although how about Tower Bridge and/or Canary Wharf to Wraysbury or King George V reservoir and then a 5 minute transfer to T5. Might work for the city boys and girls?
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River Clyde, Glasgow City Centre
ps - I'm so glad I read this thread: http://www.pprune.org/private-flying...be-videos.html
ps - I'm so glad I read this thread: http://www.pprune.org/private-flying...be-videos.html
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A challenge with circular water takeoffs will always be the wind. If the circular path required is defined by the circular waterway, then you're having to fly that path regardless of the wind direction (at best, perhaps you can reverse it, but not always). Rolling up onto one float such that the up going wing is on the upwind side could result in being very unstable, if it is gusty. Also, the intensity of the wind will greatly affect the steepness of your bank, or radius of your turn relative to the wind, to remain within the bounds of the waterway. Failure to do this can result in meeting shore on one float and high speed.
Depending upon the waterway, the view can be poor around the corner. I used to regularly takeoff from a lake which was enough "S" shaped, that the point at which you left the water was not visible to you just when you got on the step. It required a hard displacement turn one way, then once on the step, getting the opposite float out for the turn the other way. I simply depended that any canoers would get out of my way, as they heard me coming, as I certainly could not maneuver around them at those speeds. That was taking and picking up the owner at his cottage 20+ years ago. I occasionally fly over than lake now, and wonder that I would go in there at all. He did run two other floatplanes he owned ashore on that lake over the years.
Though circular takeoffs work when a roundish lake is smaller than comfy for a straight run, depending upon them so as to conform to the bounds of a river or channel operationally could eventually lead to some anxious moments.
Depending upon the waterway, the view can be poor around the corner. I used to regularly takeoff from a lake which was enough "S" shaped, that the point at which you left the water was not visible to you just when you got on the step. It required a hard displacement turn one way, then once on the step, getting the opposite float out for the turn the other way. I simply depended that any canoers would get out of my way, as they heard me coming, as I certainly could not maneuver around them at those speeds. That was taking and picking up the owner at his cottage 20+ years ago. I occasionally fly over than lake now, and wonder that I would go in there at all. He did run two other floatplanes he owned ashore on that lake over the years.
Though circular takeoffs work when a roundish lake is smaller than comfy for a straight run, depending upon them so as to conform to the bounds of a river or channel operationally could eventually lead to some anxious moments.
