Comment

Comment by Ari Hulkkonen on June 30, 2013 at 5:35am

That's a Comco Ikarus C42B, one of the most common UL aircrafts in Europe. Floats are "Floats CZ" 1200A. The floats installation was completed last September and the pilot just simply forgot the gear down when landing in water. The repair cost estimate by an official aircraft service exceeded the insured value so we repaired the plane by ourselves, which was mainly my responsibility. Service test flight was carried out last Thursday. After that I sent the paperwork to the FCAA and gave them a call on Friday. I received the temporary permission to complete the float test flights 20 minutes after the call in my email.  

The weight penalty is way too much... the useful load is only 130kg (365 empty). Optimizing everything, it might be possible to get rid of perhaps 5-10kg from the rigging but it would not change the situation much. As a comparison, my 701 on CZ straight floats has 180kg of useful load, empty weight 315kg. With some effort, replacing the heavy cowling and exhaust + changing the water rudder control connection from the nose strut to rudder (getting rid of the nose strut) I might reduce the weight some 5kg or more giving me 185kg of useful load. 

Comment by Rick George on June 29, 2013 at 9:06pm

Ari,

What is the airplane and what engine?

Are those Zenair Floats? What is the weight penalty for the floats?

Looks great!