tgott

I would like to try my Bad Boy V2 on floats. On the ground it steers just fine without a steerable tail wheel because of the effect of the huge air rudder. Can anyone tell me if I need to add a water rudder to the floats or will the same effect on land work OK on water?

YNOT

Looks like your gonna have to tell us.

Why do you need floats on a profile anyway? Hand launch and hover landing.

Ed_Moorman

My Feedback: (1)

I have a Sig Fazer on floats and I started with a water rudder hooked to the rudder. I used a piece of 1/6 wire with a rudder made from a piece of a tin can lid soldered to it. I loosened the rudder control horn and slipped the wire under it. There was an "L" bent in the top of the wire. Sitting still, the bottom of the water rudder is right at water level. During taxi, with up elevator, the rudder is in the water. Once the plane gets on the step, it is out of the water.

Later on, I decided I I needed more steering for windy flying so I added dual Ernst water rudders from Tower to the rear of the floats. I needed an extra servo to power these as the standard rudder didn't center well with the 2 water rudders hooked to it.

tgott

Ed:
Thanks for your reply and especially the photos. I see I will need to add the water rudders. I hadn't thought of dual rudders but with the simple link rod - looks easy to do.
Thanks again...
Tom

Spacey

Hi Tom,

I don't use a water rudder on my little Yak when we go float flying but it will be handy in some instances for sure. The rudders on the profiles are more than powerfull enough to steer around great when the wind is calm but yea when it gets windy it's not enough. What I have seen though as the giant fuselages of the profiles will also always want to nose into the wind. Even still though with the wind blazing you can wiggle your way back to the side just fine. If the wind picks up it'll just reverse the plane if you go to idle and there's always enough rudder to move sideways if you need to adjust reverse line I hope you understand what I mean. So yea my point is you don't need it and with a little creativity and some laughs you'll still get the bird right back to where you're standing before the guy next to you with hes trainer with steerable water rudder does. But ok I'm not trying to talk you out of a water rudder, I'm just a firm believer in the keep it simple stupid rule. Hehehe

Good luck with it though! Profiles on floats are oodles of fun!
Cheers
Spacey

STLPilot

My Feedback: (21)

Get yourself a nice RC sailboat to practice with. I think what your trying to say is "tack" into the wind. I'm not exactly sure tho as I've had a RC sailboat for about 2 years and I haven't been bored enough to actually take it out and use it, but I did read that in the manual, something about "tacking" or maybe it was "tackling"????

buildflycrash

So basicly, what your saying is, you have no idea what your talking about.

"Tacking" is a sailing manuvere to go upwind. Down wind is the problem, for that you would "Jibe" a sailboat.

STLPilot

My Feedback: (21)

Actually that's not the case, it was kind of an inside joke with a good friend of mine. I'm pretty well versed on the points of sailing.

tgott

Hey Spacey!
Looks like we really started something going here! Profiles on floats makes perfect sense to me!
I knew there had to be guys out there who had done it before! Thanks for the benefit of your experience. Sounds like a blast to me.
Tom

Spacey

Hi Tom,

I actually found the old thread of my initial float experiments. We go float flying quite regularly now , matter a fact we went again just last Saturday . It's still just as much fun and the Yak still does the trick for me. Very easy to just bolt off the wheels and tie the existing LG to the floats. The rearward gear I simply strap on with velcro so the whole float mounting task only takes me about 10 minutes at most while having a beer and a smoke.

Here's the old thread:
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_34...tm.htm#3427244

Good luck and have fun! But I doubt you wouldn't have fun..hehehe
Cheers
Spacey