Latest Posts

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!