Back in the air!
Water has been around much longer than men and made its rules without asking us!
Facing that we modified to better adapt to those rules and therefore we also started the continuing flight testing from the water surface.
Taxiing up to eight knots went fine but we knew since before that we needed twelve to plane.
Above eight we got a nasty spray from mainly the forward tips of the wheel pants and the propeller didn’t like that. This forced us to reduce the power before we reached the wanted twelve knots.
By using various ugly temporaries we reduced the spray and on May 20th the Seagull suddenly jumped up in planing and then it was a matter of seconds to get airborne. This backed our assumption that it was the transition phase we needed to bridge.
Making ugly temporaries go quick; making nice permanents take a little longer and that is what we are doing right now. Fortunately, the permanent solutions are not in any sense compromising the look or the aerodynamics.
Thanks for your interest,
Lage