[kip51035]

At the back of the floats, if the rudder attachment poast protrudes below the bottom of the floats this will inhibit your rotation angle. The front of the rudders should be very sharp, for the least amount of drag. Full size aircraft retract the water rudders for takeoff. Put the aircraft on a table and push the tail down, so the back of the floats is touching the table, first of all it should stay there and the centre line of the wing cord should be at 8 to 10 deg. positive incidence.

[cessna180]

Very good advice, but also remember that the water rudders should be up for landing. This is more critical than for take off.
Michael

[Propworn]

I leave the water rudders permanently in the down position with no ill effects on takeoff or landing. It seems to be more critical where you position the step and the angle of the floats.

[srxtwins]

If you are having to "yank" it off the water you will have issues with wing stall. you have to fly it off the water like a war bird on grass, nice and gentle up elevator. If you are having a water tracking problem look to your water rudders. smaller or single rudders are sometimes a help, also watch for floating weeds. If you hook one on a rudder you will have a hand full.

[proptup]

Hi,
Check that your float rudders are not pointing dow2n into the water rather out behind the float. This should let them be almost out of the water w2hen the float is on the step.
Cheers,
Proptup

[Coldtoes]

Could moving the C/G forward slightly help ground looping on the water?

[1900Driver]

Hello Barry,

I’ve experienced this with a CG eagle I had on floats. Compared to my Sig Kadet, Smith Miniplane, Balsa USA 1\4 Cub that I flew on floats. All of which could relatively easily step taxi. The CG eagle would definitely not. If I pushed it over onto the step to make it look like a classic float plane takeoff it would lose elevator authority and eventually oscillate left and right then ground loop. I think the extremely light weight and float size causes a suction just above takeoff speed (which is a very low speed). This sounds like the same issue with your timber. The only solution was to yank it off as previously suggested by other posters. It could get sketchy quick so you have to pick good days. I even tried to shim the front float struts to increase the angle of attack. That didn’t help.

Good luck… also I am up in midland fairly often and if you have a place to float fly in Tiny I would love to bring up my Carbon Cub and blast around on the water with you. PM me if interested.

Best regards,

Bryan

[OLD PRAIRIE RED NECK]

I'm going to go against the grain here and suggest that you plane doesn't have enough vertical stabilizer to offset the additional vertical area the floats have that is ahead of the center of gravity. I think the front of the floats has more authority than the air rudder and is steering your plane for you.

When the floats are up on step the water rudders should be free and clear of the water if it's set up properly and by then the air rudder should be calling the shots.

[stegl]

Whether using a single or dual water rudder , they should be made to swivel upwards , not solid mounting , so the when speed increases the water should be pushing up on them so if allowed to swivel there is little effect in steering and that being done by the aircraft rudder Being adjusted parallel also helps considerably . It doesn’t take much in external forces to shove around a light airframe.

There is much controversy over where the step should be in relation to the CofG but as long as I am within from 1/4 inch in front to within 1/4 inch behind the step ; I am happy with that . In my opinion, I don’t get too excited about that.

As for wing incidence to the flat top of the floats ; should be about +2 positive . This is were the Robart incidence gauge comes in real handy. If you still are having issues “water looping “ , keep a fair bit of up elevator until on step and relax the up elevator a wee bit and she will fly off . What’s happening if you add too much power without getting the nose and float front up , is that at too low a speed you are pushing the front of the floats into the water causing them to “ skitter” all over the place.
If you still have issues ; post some videos with the aircraft taking off from right to left or left to right....not directly away.

I have a flown my share of float aircraft from 25 size on up to the larger 80cc equivalent and they all flew well by following the established basics .

[Tom Gottlieb]

Hey Bearcraft!
I don't claim to be an expert but you might find my recent thread on "One or Two Water Rudders?" useful. You might just have the same problem I had. Electric motors can produce a lot of torque and could be causing one float to dig in resulting in an uncontrollable loop. Rather than fuss with all the adjustments suggested in this thread, if you are set up close to factory recommendations I would start by just trying to stay off any elevator on startup allowing the plane to get up on the step quicker and then be very gentle on advancing throttle. As long as the plane is picking up speed as it gets lighter, don't give it more throttle. Then just a touch of up elevator should do it. Read the other thread. Hope this helps.
Tom