Wings on the water

There’s always a catch. In seaplane flying, it is this: Once you have achieved the single-engine add-on rating to your private pilot certificate, how do you keep flying seaplanes?

You could buy one (and presumably move to a place with water access). Or, you could….

“Everybody has the same question when they’re done: How can I rent a seaplane?” said Chris Hinote, president of Flying Fish No Limits Flying Club in Lakeland, Florida. “You really couldn’t.”

Not without a lot of hours, that is. Insurance costs are prohibitive for seaplane operators to rent airplanes to solo pilots, and so most of them just—don’t. Those that do allow pilots to check out in their aircraft impose stringent training requirements.

“It’s too much of a liability” to rent seaplanes to pilots, Hinote said. In 2015 he and his wife, Amanda, opened a seaplane training business in Missouri, flying there in the warm months and then heading down to St. Thomas for the winter to do seaplane tours in their Cessna 185 on amphibious floats. They understand customers’ frustration at not being able to rent a seaplane.

What if, the Hinotes wondered, they could put together a flying club that would enable its members not only to get the seaplane rating, but also to fly the airplane afterward? And the concept of Flying Fish No Limits Flying Club was born.

No limits

With locations in St. Louis, Missouri and Lakeland—but hoping to go nationwide—No Limits is a membership rental program. Club members pay $150 monthly dues, which includes the cost of liability insurance. The hourly wet rate for the Florida location is $179; flight instruction is $60 per hour. Members pay a discounted $214 per hour for dual instruction and aircraft rental; nonmembers pay $299 per hour for dual instruction and rental.

Yes, you can come in off the street and fly one of the airplanes; you can get a single-engine seaplane add-on or a LSA seaplane endorsement; you can get a tailwheel endorsement in the SeaRey; or you can get an introductory flight.

In addition to a seaplane LSA endorsement, if needed, members complete a 15-hour insurance checkout before they can solo the SeaRey. Fifteen hours sounds like a lot, but Amanda Hinote said it flies by, no pun intended. “You’re working on land landings, crosswinds, the water. In Missouri you’ve got the rivers, the winds, the current. This is a whole other world.” Club members can fly airplanes at both locations.

“Our goal is not just to get you to pass a checkride,” said Chris Hinote. “I want our club members to be competent but also safe and confident in their abilities in the airplane.

“We make sure everybody feels good about it, and safe first and foremost, and we haven’t had any issues,” he said.

Dress the part

At Lakeland Linder International Airport in Florida, shorts and flip-flops are common—even in March. When you’re flying a SeaRey, swap flip-flops for water shoes and you’re ready for anything.

The Progressive Aerodyne SeaRey, manufactured in nearby Tavares, Florida, is a compact amphibious aircraft with retractable landing gear, a hull where an engine would be on a landplane, and a Rotax engine mounted pusher-style in the rear, behind the cockpit.

Hinote pulled a SeaRey out of its hangar to explain why this special light sport aircraft is the chariot of choice for Flying Fish club members. This airplane, N836SR, is a hybrid of SeaRey’s Adventure, which is the base model, and the Elite, which has some fancier features.

N836SR has the Adventure’s fiberglass hull for ease of repair and a three-pack of steam gauges, chosen because Hinote does not want club members flying head down, “playing with the box when they should be paying attention to where they are going on the water.” It does have a panel-mounted Garmin aera 796 GPS for pilots’ peace of mind, he said.

This airplane has the stock 100-horsepower Rotax 912 engine, but all subsequent airplanes will get a Rotax 914 (115 horsepower with turbo). From the Elite, N836SR has electric flaps, plus a heater “because it gets chilly in Missouri,” Hinote said.

SeaRey built N836SR to spec for the flying club, and the company will build all the club’s airplanes to the same specifications. That’s part of the strategy for a club with multiple locations: Offer a fleet that is identical, to mitigate the human factors that can come into play with fleet differences, Hinote said.

Ready to play

Climbing into the SeaRey is easy: Step on the tire with your left foot, place your right foot on the seat, then lower yourself as gracefully as you can manage. Don a life vest before you climb into the airplane, to save some time.

I immediately took to the SeaRey’s big, track-mounted canopy. The airplane can be flown with the canopy open or closed. It is split down the center and the sides can be raised or lowered independently. (I lowered my side; what’s the point of seaplane flying if you don’t get at least a little bit wet?)

Speaking of wet, that’s why shorts are preferred. Try rolling blue jeans up to your knees to keep them dry if you should land the SeaRey on a lake and want to pull it up on the shoreline. Oh, and you don’t wear flip-flops—they can come off in the water.

The starter sequence is simple: set the brake, adjust the choke, and turn the key, keeping one hand on the throttle. The Rotax snaps to life. The pusher propeller provides a high thrust vector that causes the airplane’s nose to initially pitch up when you reduce power, or initially push down when you add power—the opposite of what you would experience in a Cessna. You have to be ready for it, particularly during a go-around.

The airplane handled well on the ground, even for a pilot with no tailwheel endorsement. Hinote said you’ve got to really work to ground loop a SeaRey. “We had a member bounce sideways down the runway and it still didn’t ground loop,” he said.

A SeaRey equipped like this one cruises at a leisurely 85 miles per hour, burning just 3.5 to 4 gallons per hour—perfect for hopping from lake to lake, or skimming along a canal.

To set up for a water landing, we cleared the area, checked the wind direction, and set an aiming point. The mnemonic GIFFS—gear up or down, check instruments, fuel pump on, flaps to 10 degrees, and spatial awareness—is printed on the panel. Pitch for 75 mph, then repeat the checklist on base, adding another 10 degrees of flaps and slowing to 70 mph. On final, we repeated the checklist a third time, pitched for 65 mph, and held 65 at that power setting. At 2 to 3 feet above the water, we raised the nose without trying to flare. We looked for the far shoreline, eased the throttle back, and allowed the airplane to settle on the surface.

The SeaRey has an audible alert that prompts pilots to retract the gear for a water landing. At a certain airspeed, the alert tells the pilot, “Select Landing”—water or land—to electrically retract or lower the gear. Of course you can always lower the gear in the water, hold the stick back, add power, and taxi up onto a beach or boat ramp. The SeaRey factory in Tavares has a ramp just for this purpose.

On the horizon

Chris and Amanda Hinote hope to bring the enjoyment and adventure of seaplane flying to a much broader segment of the population. The compact, riotously fun SeaRey—not too big, not too small, and economical to fly—is a great ambassador to spread that message.

“Some people were leery of the SeaRey, not being familiar with light sport,” Chris Hinote said. One flight will change your mind, as it did for a local designated pilot examiner.

“I took him for a flight,” Hinote said. “He loved it. He was hooked.”

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