Unusual attitude

I once completed a marathon journey in an amphibious Piper PA–18 Super Cub that stretched from Key West, Florida, to Bangor, Maine, and then on to Minnesota. The 2,000-nautical-mile trip involved relatively few water landings using the airplane’s Wipline 2100 amphibious floats, but I was glad to have them because they allowed for a far more interesting and scenic route flown in smoother air.

Leaving the Florida Keys, AOPA Director of Photography Chris Rose and I skimmed the waves all the way to the Everglades, then overflew Lake Okeechobee at low altitude on our way to the Atlantic. Seeing dolphins, seabirds, schools of fish, sail and power boats, and lobster traps wouldn’t have been nearly so much fun from thousands of feet above. We avoided headwinds and bumps by staying low as we followed the beaches and marshlands up the Georgia and South Carolina coasts.

These amphibious floats add about 330 pounds to the Super Cub’s empty weight, and the airplane pays a price for the additional weight in terms of takeoff and landing distances, and its rate of climb and service ceiling are sharply reduced. A 160-horsepower Super Cub on wheels climbs to a maximum altitude of 18,000 feet, but with amphibious floats it takes a major effort to reach 8,000 feet. However, the airplane’s cruise speed at 2,500 engine rpm is about 85 knots, a relatively small penalty of less than 10 percent from the wheeled version.

The payoff for having floats is that you can safely fly places you wouldn’t otherwise go. Seeing the New Hampshire and Maine coasts at nearly eye level, for example, was a rare and invigorating experience. And the floats also contain internal lockers that hold bulky bags that don’t easily fit into the Super Cub’s fuselage.

Leaving Maine, the floats turned into an even bigger blessing. A soul-crushing headwind pushed ground speeds below 60 knots over the Adirondack Mountains of New York, and sharp turbulence made for a wallowing ride. Over the south shore of Lake Ontario, however, cool and uniform water temperatures brought smooth air, and dropping down to 100 feet or so above the surface eliminated much of the headwind.

After I refueled in Buffalo, New York, the summer heat and humidity created powerful thunderstorms along the south shore of Lake Erie. My planned route by Cleveland, Ohio, was blocked. But the north side of the lake—the Canada side—was wide open with visual conditions. I filed a VFR flight plan and was soon on my way across a 200-mile stretch of Canadian airspace. Once over the water, conditions improved and ground speed increased. I stayed about one mile offshore for most of the next two hours and well below gliding distance to shore. But who cares about gliding distance to shore in a floatplane? Wave heights were well under the Super Cub’s limit of two feet, and I had a paddle.

Lake Michigan was the last big water feature on the way to Minnesota. At 75 nautical miles (from just north of Muskegon, Michigan, to Green Bay, Wisconsin), the crossing would put the Super Cub over water for about one hour. Low clouds and fog blanketed western Michigan, but the air—and, more important, the surface of the lake itself—was mirror smooth. If a forced landing became necessary, the floats could handle it, easily.

Amphibious floats can be hard to justify in purely economic terms. They reduce any aircraft’s speed, range, and ceiling. They’re expensive. And, if all that’s not enough to dissuade you, they also raise insurance rates. But the ability to fly on and off the water opens up so many possibilities for adventure and exploration, even when the floats stay dry.