retractable floats?

On Feb 1, 2:06 am, Jackal24 wrote:
wrote groups.com:



Jackal24 wrote:
AFAIK, the step on the floats causes large amounts of drag due to the
turbulence of the air created behind it. What about a retractable
fairing to streamline the step while in air? It seems like this would
be fairly simple to accomplish, but I'm not sure how much drag it
would actually eliminate.

How about if you eliminate the step by using air injected under
the float instead?

Lapstrake floats maybe?

While it might work, it sounds a lot more complicated. A retractable
fairing could be purely mechanically operated with only a few moving parts.

Lapstrake construction has no moving parts.

It may have excessive drag in the air, as a lapstrake float would
have a larger wetted surface than would a smooth one. But air
can do funny things.

--

FF