Category: Seaplane Business
Seaplanes as a Business – Your Business.
My Rinjani Moon – Landing a Seaplane Inside a Volcano
Landing a Seaplane inside the Rinjani Volcano is equivalent to Indonesia landing a Man on the Moon. Mount Rinjani is an active volcano that built the island of Lombok. That is a realistic way of looking at a volcano’s role. When anyone mentions Mount Rinjani, they say it is on the island of Lombok....
Building a Better Seaplane Base
An Alternative to Crowded Airports How do you cope as an ad-hoc charter operator when faced with long delays at a crowded airport with limited take-off and landing slots that must be booked days in advance? You need someone who can think outside the traffic pattern to answer this question. I was asked to...
My Eleventh Hour: Adventures in a PBY Flying Boat
High inside the Arctic Circle. 1966. The captain taxied the immense, majestic Canso flying boat into the frigid Foxe Basin arctic waters. We were leaving Igloolic, a fragile-looking settlement perched tenuously, like a tern’s egg, on a rocky island between the giant Baffin Island and the mainland Melville Peninsula. I would most likely never...
What do Pearls and Seaplane Pilots Have in Common?
Seaplanes, Pilots and the Golden South Seas Pearls. Gold, silver, diamonds, precious stones, and pearls have been at the top of man’s list of the most sought-after and cherished valuables since man learned to forge these raw elements into jewellery. Pearls, however, have been the moonlight glint in man’s eyes since the beginning. “The...
Seaplanes: Revisiting the World’s Forgotten Runways
The Potential of Seaplanes: Reaching Out to Remote Regions. One of the more questionable quotes I hear seaplane promoters use is that 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, suggesting that we need more seaplanes to fly to more places. While there’s a certain appeal to the notion that our planet’s vast...
Flying Boats, Amphibians, and Seaworthiness
Seaplane seaworthiness and how flying boats and amphibians can make a difference. The Pan Am Clippers are revered by those who care and are mostly forgotten by those who do not care about the flying boats. The Clippers, named after the tremendous romantic sailing ships of the early 19th century, were not one aircraft...
Sea States and Sea Readiness: What Could Go Wrong?
The Navy uses Ship Readiness to assess their ability to operate in the world’s oceans. You cannot find the definition of Sea Readiness in a dictionary. The Navy has an equivalent process called Ship Readiness, which involves assessing whether ships and crew are ready to operate in the waters of the world’s oceans. I...
When the World’s My Oyster: Defining Seastates
A Guide to Operating Seaplanes in the Seas. In Flying Boats, Amphibians, and Seaworthiness, I defined the terms needed to understand the technical aspects of seaplanes. Now, I will discuss the definitions required to understand the essential technical aspects of operating in the sea. This means understanding sea states and how they relate to...
What is the Difference Between a Floatplane and a Seaplane?
Richard Quest, a CNN business commentator and aviation analyst, asked me, “What is the difference between a floatplane and a seaplane?” Richard explained that on a newscast, he called an airplane on floats a seaplane, and the know-it-alls bombarded him with comments saying he got it wrong. My answer is an attempt to explain...