From www.flyalaska.com, Grumman Albatross takeoff and flyby

Grumman Albatross departs the beach wheels down, checks engines, raises wheels, takes off with a lot of water streaming from the tail, disappears behind terrain and flies by still streaming water from the tail.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Grumman
• Albatross
• flyby...Alaska
• www.flyalaska.com

[monguse39]

AceWalkerAstronaut,

Thanks for the explanation about the spray. Sounds reasonable to me and echoes a comment made quite a while ago by another poster.

[monguse39]

I am sorry to report that the man who was flying the Grumman Albatross in this video clip, Terry Smith, was the pilot of the GCI Turbine Otter that crashed in Alaska on August 9th, 2010. He was killed in the crash along with ex-senator Ted Stevens, Dana Tindall, 48, of Anchorage; Tindall's 16-year-old daughter Corey and Bill Phillips, a former Stevens chief of staff. Terry was a 29,000 hour retired Alaska Airline pilot who grew up flying.

[monguse39]

The likelihood of staying afloat or even making a successful power-off landing in the Atlantic ocean in any kind of flying boat would depend entirely on the water being sufficiently calm. A landing in waves typical of the mid-Atlantic, would be unlikely to keep the plane afloat for very long.

[monguse39]

Ithink he had a leaky belly and shipped a lot of water during his approximately two hour stay at the lodge.  He got stuck and we spent about two hours digging under water tracks/trenches for his main wheels. He tried several times with lots of power to get unstuck. Each time except for this one shone on the video, we continued to dig, until it finally worked.

[Glidescube]

Wasnt the albatross a post WWII plane? Everyone call it a war era plane but it's actually from after the Korean war.

[monguse39]

The prototype which flew first in October of 1947, was designated XJR2F-1, going into production as the UF-1.

The Albatross was used extensively in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Experience with the UF-1 led to a number of modifications, such as more effective de-icing boots for the leading edges of airfoils, increased wing span, redesign of the leading edge to increase lift, and an increase in the area of the ailerons and tail surfaces. The revised model, introduced in 1955, was called UF-2.

[johnkamm]

I just wish we had more Albatross's still flying, just a wonderful plane.....and such a great sound from those round engines!

[wolfdenpaul]

@monguse39 I now just read what happened to them, so very sad , my heart goes out to the family's, bless them all.

[NaziJuice]

That is pretty sexy I want one.

[AceWalkerAstronaut]

I've heard that it's actually normal for an Albatross to vent a lot of water just after takeoff like that. The gear wells pick up about 1,000 lbs of water during water operations and there are actually drain pipes that lead from the wells to the area of low air pressure just behind the step to get rid of it-so the low air pressure at speed sort of sucks the water out of the wells; it just takes a while. Never flown one to verify, just what I've heard.

[legebakkenb]

WOW !! Mighty and wonderful. - And the sound !! This is the only propelled flying maschine that comes close to my sound-favourite : the BF 109 Thanks !

And being a pilot I fully share the scary fact that is told of here about water in the belly after take of. Was this a common problem Guess it was. I remember my father draining the floats on his Auster on floats( Super Cub engine)

Greetings from Norway

[mwerner714]

The amount of water coming from the plane after T/O scares me. Back in 1994 a Chalk’s Grumman Mallard G-73T (similar to the Grumman in this video clip) crashed in Key West Harbor, killing the two pilots on board. (There were no passengers on board at the time.) The cause of the crash was water in the belly that, on rotation, found its way to the rear of the plane causing a stall and the fatal crash. Best to check for water in the belly before T/O. Sorry to hear about Terry and the others.

[kawazx10rturbo]

just beautiful!!!!!!

[sailin1934]

what a beautiful bird, what a thrill it would be to fly one.

[spamfragger]

Legally all you would need is a private pilots license with multi-engine land and sea ratings. Unless you intended to fly it either on land only or sea only, then you's need one or the other multi-engine rating. You would also need a lot of money so you buy one, because no one is going to let you fly theirs, with only the minimum legal pilot requirements.

[primodori]

how many hours of flight and what type of licence u need to pilot an Albatross or a Mallard anyways?