Petrel Amphibian #31, OH-U312 -1994

I found an old Hi8 tape with some video of my Petrel Amphibian #31 back in May 1994. The video starts with the assembly of it after a major reparation of it after a mishap involving landing gears coming out in the water. This mishap resulted in it being turned into a submarine (good thing with the call sign of U-312)
The Petrel manged to survive its submersion fairly well, but when the fire department did it's "rescue" routine it actually suffered quite a bit of damage not related to the mishap.
Nevertheless it is still flying and going strong, and i am still of the opinion, without a doubt, that an amphibian is the only way to enjoy true aviational freedom. It enables you to go where no aviator's gone before...

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Seaplane
• Amphibian
• aviation
• Experimental
• Flying
• Petrel
• Ilmailu
• lentäminen
• ultrakevyt
• vesilentäminen

[golfehydravion]

Hey Tom,

It's a pleasure to see the Petrel on an a old video.

Did you join LES AMIS DU PETREL on Facebook ?

Hope to see you at BISCARROSSE on May.

Arnaud

[tomarppe]

I really will try to get there, and yes I did join, had to turn the discussion onto English as my French is non-existent, nut bare with me ;-)

[seaplaneguy1]

Thanks for sharing. Where is this?

How to get out without getting the feet wet...

[tomarppe]

The location is a small island in Finland you can find the coordinates in panoramio.

cannot post a URL here so go to panoramio and add /photo/7835577 in the end.

It is very hard to keep your feet dry, I suppose the only way would be to buy a float plane as I cannot even get to a pier due to the lower ving being in the way.

Well, I still wouldn't want to trade, like being low, no risk of tipping over even during heavier gusts and ground handling and storage is easier too.

[seaplaneguy1]

Tomarppe,

I am designing a new seaplane that solves the wet feet problem and others.

Look at my picture from my u tube page...that was a 1999 design I worked on with a guy (now 82 years old). There is a low wing version of the airplane (square wing above attaches to lower lifting body) shown that is now flying. It will be at Arlington EAA this summer.

Making a useful seaplane is very difficult design problem.