"a" wrote

The notion of that O'Day hull on the plane scares me!

I did get it surfing down the face of some waves (6 to 8 footers on Lake
Erie) running before a pretty strong wind. It was... fun, I think? g
Seriously, I saw nearly 10 knots a few times, so I guess I was planning!
The steering was seriously skittish!

Digging deep into memory I seem to remember speed increases
as power to the 1/4 power after a displacement hull is around hull
speed, trying to climb its bow wave. I think that also represents the
'kick' in power it takes a planing hull to get on its step. Hmm,
aviation link. Maybe sea planes?

Yep, that sounds about right. And the step in the hull on seaplanes is to
help with the power required to get up on plane, I believe, and to make
rotation less problematic.

There was talk a couple of decades ago about some airplanes getting on
their step, the idea might have been to getting past the desired
cruise speed then slowing down would lead to a more efficient AoA,
rather than doing what most of us do coming out of a climb -- just
accelerate to cruise, trim things up, then sit back and manage the
airplane.

I have read those articles, or some of them, and the concensus was (as I
recall) that if you had not gone higher, and accellerated by diving those
few feet, the speed it settled on after a few minutes was the same in both
cases.

I'm not sure, re common parts of an engine, that the alternator needs
to be different. I think they'd work either way, the rectifiers
wouldn't care about the phase of the AC at their input. You probably
meant to type fuel pump.

I think the cooling fins need to be reversed on some alternators, from what
I recall. The fuel pump would be the same if it is a cam actuated one,
wouldn't it?
--
Jim in NC