Pop out floats on a 206BIII

(Rhodesst) wrote in
:

How stable is the helicopter while it's sitting in the water on these
floats? Obviously, rough seas will pretty much doom the aircraft but
will it be reasonably stable on calm water?

On calm water, they'll usually keep it up. The problem is that the CG is
very high, & the helicopter will roll upside down very easily, especially
if the wind & seas get up. Trying to tow the the helicopter will almost
always result in it turning turtle & tearing itself apart.

The floats do slow it down, especially the modern 6-pack floats. The older
pan floats didn't slow it down very much, but in a BIII 100 kts is about
all you can expect with floats, especially with a load. Light, you might
get 110, but then again you might not. I used to plan on 100 & that was
usually pretty accurate.

--
Regards,

Stan