An amphibian that sank?

On 23 Apr 2006 13:56:44 -0700, "Flyingmonk" wrote:

Anyone have the story behind this? Strange that a plane designed to
float, sank!

Friend of mine had built an Osprey II amphibian and planned to make its first
flight from the water instead of land. He took it down the seaplane ramp for
water-taxi testing. A few minutes after hitting the lake, he noticed water
sloshing around on the bottom of plane. When he'd gone down the seaplane ramp,
the nose of the plane had pitch up when it hit the water, ramming the tail skid
into the fuselage and leaving a bit of a large hole.

He poured on the power to go back to the ramp. When he got close, he cut power
and flipped the Armstrong gear lever. But when the gear hit the ramp, the mains
collapsed. Turns out the primary landing gear torque tube had been undersized
(design error).

My buddy paid for a forklift to carry his plane back to the hangar. There, he
set the bottle jack under the wing to jack the plane up so that he could lower
the gear back down. The jack slipped, punching a hole in the bottom of the
wing.

Amphibians CAN sink...and even if they float, the day ain't over yet. :-)

Ron Wanttaja