The winds in Norman, OK were forecast to be 14 mph at 10am just about the time we planned to arrive. What’s more, they were supposed to increase each hour to 24 mph. But we went anyway, five of us driving to Norman. Ken and Clem, Steve J and Don H, and Larry going solo. Ken and I were fueled by Ken’s excitement to finally get his newly acquired Seawind in the water, damn the wind—full speed ahead! When we got there not only was the wind blowing, but it was also drizzling , overcast, and chilly. The Norman club was nice enough to open the field earlier in the morning than usual to accommodate our visit hoping to get the Seawind’s maiden flight done before the wind got too crazy.
Bolstered by a couple flights by the Norman guys, Ken got his courage up and put the airplane in the water. The warnings Ken had read about the Seawind digging its wingtips in the water were true, especially at slow taxi speeds. That, combined with the weathervaning caused by the strong wind made the seaplane hard to steer. Despite Ken’s stick wiggling, it drifted downwind in the lake and finally ran into the shore. Ken and Don Haines crept out to the water’s edge, sticking their feet out as far as they would go to push the airplane out into the lake. Threatened with foot amputation by the OS 91 just inches away from their little piggies, they managed to turn the plane back out to sea. Ken figured out that he could steer if the taxi speed was high enough to keep airflow over the rudder. The airplane does not have a water rudder. Soon, he manned up and blasted off, making a pretty decent takeoff. The Seawind is a sensitive beast with high lateral roll rates, but Ken got it under control and managed a nice flight. Landing was a bit of an airshow with a bounce back into the air and finally a rather hard plop into the water. The airplane was still in one piece, though the root rib of one wing was torn out and there was some internal formers busted loose. Fortunately, Ken had brought along a spare gallon of 5-minute epoxy, a smart idea given the usual field repairs he has to make after his typical flights 🙂 Once all the epoxy cured, Ken flew again despite the winds running about 14 mph. But this time he had it wired, putting in a nice flight and a nice landing. This was a triumph and we called it a day because the winds were getting ridiculous and the white caps on the lake were obscuring our vision of the airplanes.
There was some other fun flying by Norman club members. The treat of the day was a 3-engine Hooker with swept wings. Three OS 70’s pulled this thing straight up despite the drag of the floats. It looked cool, but the sound of 3 engines in sync was downright thrilling. A couple of other float planes were flown by some guys who really knew what they were doing. One even did inverted flat spins with floats. I hadn’t seen that before.
The Norman gang cooked hot dogs for all and treated us as good friends. Their hospitality and warm welcome was great. They float fly every month of the flying season and we are all invited. Even if you don’t float fly, it’s fun to go watch them, so plan a day to go visit. Norman isn’t far and you’ll have a good time.
A fun day with good friends and the same number of parts on return that we went with–what more could we want?
– Clem
