Building a Sea Duck

[Burnhard]

We are going to have a sea plane event mid October. For last years event I built a Simple Scout XL with some floats. This year I want to go for a FT Sea Duck.

I have a few mods in mind. On the wings, instead of the fold technique with breaking the foam I want to use the curve technique from the Master Series. Also I want a closed wing on the winglets (did that in my P40 mighty mini to P40 MS conversion. Don‘t think I will add functioning rudders. For the ESCs I have bought some which can be used in boats and which have a motor reverse option (I have seen that at Tailheavy videos and thought I want to give this a try. Last but not least I am trying to think about a solution for an optional tricycle landing gear so that I can also fly it on the field.

Quick question my ESCs have plugs for a watercooling. I could at least cone t these to some piping for moving air through the ESCs. Any thoughts on this or should I not even bother?

 

[Grauwulf]

Honestly, I've built a couple of 'ducks now and I can't see reversing ESC's being a huge benefit. Just set up differential thrust on your transmitter and call it good.

 

[Burnhard]

Honestly, I've built a couple of 'ducks now and I can't see reversing ESC's being a huge benefit. Just set up differential thrust on your transmitter and call it good.

Just wanted to play with it. I am already done with the setup on my radio. My plan is to fit the duck with a retractable gear so that I can also fly it from our field. Will post some picture from the build.

 

[Burnhard]

I did the maiden today. It flies quite nicely. Started from and landed on grass. Worked all very well.

IDuring the build I had a long thought about adding retracts. I did some drawings but I could not get to something that could have worked. First, slicing up the bottom would have cost a lot of stability. Next, I could not imagine this beeing waterproof for landings on water. Last but not least, my biggest fear was that if something breaks or needs to be fixed, it would habe been almost impossible to get to the mechanics as all of that would sit inside the main fuselage without any access.

Instead I just added two pieces of ply with some nuts pre attached so that later I can mount a fixed landing gear. While flying from water, the four holes are covered by pieces of tape.