An amphibian that sank?

Ron Wanttaja wrote:


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.

Sounds like it was time to go get a beer and come back
another day. Its always a good thing to know when you're
whupped

Don W.

Prior to flying the "Spruce Goose", Howard Hughes filled the belly with
beach balls. He was concerned about sinking.

Although he took most of the balls out after the flight (maybe he returned
them and got his money back), there were many left in all the hard to get
places. Prior to being refurbished in McMinnville, OR, I saw a number of
them still down in the tight spots.

Colin

When he did his round the world flight he invented the ping pong ball
thing, filled the wings and other parts.