Flew the Beaver last weekend at a friends pond. Even with gusting winds to about 13 mph the new water rudder rigging worked well. With that issue fixed I would say it taxis and lifts off the water well. The only possible draw back I can see is that when the float with rudder lifts first it can cause some minor directional changes while the other stays down. This is brief though and doesn’t represent a real problem. The new linkage is definitely a major upgrade from the ridiculous design that Flyzone utilized out of the box. I’m not saying this one change makes this plane a winner but it at least resolves one of the biggest drawbacks that directly affect its performance as an airplane. Now that taxiing and flying off water are more easily accomplished.
If you have or are considering purchasing this plane I highly recommend you do something similar before you even attempt float based operations.
One other positive to report is that after an unfortunate wind gust the airplane ended up floating upside down. After minutes of this a recovery was made and the plane was found to have taken on so little water that no problems resulted and the plane was immediately ready for another flight. This is often not the case with other float planes but the Beaver is light and buoyant enough to survive a dunking without taking on much water.
This experience has raised my opinion of the Beaver slightly but I don’t expect to be writing any fan letters on the product anytime soon!
Your so outnumbered in your review of the flyzone beaver ….that review alone , makes us all question anything you say.
Edited by moderator… The above is per Will’s original post but the next sentence was simply an insult with no editorial value therefore I have deleted it. I want to encourage commentary… even if contrary to my own… but I see no point in letting the discussion degenerate to personal attacks or allow anyone to insult me on my own website!
I agree that I am outnumbered by the folks I’ve seen on line commenting on this plane. Many people seem to like it and I read hundreds of such comments before I bought one. It’s my opinion however that magazine style reviews that simply praise every product and don’t point out the flaws are not very useful. I try to speak from my own experience as best I can and evaluate based on other planes I’ve flown. I stand by what I have written.