Definitely not the back yard, my home is decidedly landlocked. I was flying from a municipal boat ramp at a small local lake that has a "no gas engine" policy to keep the neighborhood peace. I would love to live on the water as well.

Yes, it was flat calm and I chose those conditions to give us the cleanest possible reflections for our still photography as you can see on the cover. No question any breeze would slow the apparent landing speed by whatever the wind speed was, assuming landing into the wind.

Thayer

Cool!

Thayer;

I've been waiting for an ARF of one of the Grumman "Iron Works" amphibians and pre-ordered one at my LHS yesterday. I also ordered the recommended power systems for the plane.

From the video it appears that the water steering is via differential thrust, but the instructions that I downloaded from the Tower Hobbies site doesn't mention it at all.

Will the production airplane use differential thrust for water steering or the ugly water rudder that is similar to that of the PBY? I disliked the water rudder on my PBY so much that I made an alternative, although not scale (the full size PBY used differential thrust), it looked better IMHO. Whether or not the production airplane uses the water rudder, it would be nice if the instructions outlined a way to set up differential thrust steering. Maybe this could be done via a supplement available for downloading.

I don't know if Tower has already changed their stock number for the Widgeon, but I ordered mine under Stock #LNAYRW, and the site said the ARFs would ship in "late September". With what has previously been reported on this thread, maybe they meant that the shipping would be in "late Septober/Octember".

Regards,
Grog

Grog, some added insight on PBY turning...they would send men out on the wing to dig the inside float in for tighter turning in some situations.
Source: I once worked for Dick Becker, F2G Thompson race pilot. He flew PBY's in the Aleutians.
Great guy to work for.
art

The video looks great! I'm thinking I best get one on order soon!

Differential thrust steering is the only way to go whether it comes with a rudder or not. Very easy to do and it will give you excellent directional control even on a slightly windy take-off. This thread explains different methods of setting it up: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showt...ntial+steering

Just a quick note to comment on the setup shown. I initially built the Widgeon as per the manual with the water rudder and was very pleased with how effective it was. Unfortunately, our local flying site has quite a bit of vegetation as you can see, and soon enough the Widgeon was trailing a multi-species pennant. While it didn't seem to noticeably affect the handling, the looks did suffer. I do nearly all of my float flying from shore instead of a dock or boat, so I removed the water rudder and programmed differential thrust into my Futaba 10C as you can see in the video. Honestly, the water rudder gives tighter turns than shown and if weeds are not an issue for you the stock configuration works very well.

Thayer

Love this plane , will be purchasing one. We are spoilt by getting so many fantastic planes offerd to us.
.

Thayer, Speaking of water you must be getting loads of it now as hurricane Irene sweeps through NY and CT. Stay safe and I hope you don't see any damage!

We just got the auto call from our mayor imploring folks to stay off the streets. 20% of the town is without power and it is raining moderately hard but still no wind. That is expected in the next hour. There is a very little water in the unfinished basement but it isn't bad yet and with power I can still shop vac it up. Am having a little breakfast now, then will go back downstairs to make sure nothing valuable is on the slab.

My 93 old Dad lives in Center Moriches, Long Island on the bay. His friends shuttered up the house with corrugated aluminum panels (he's prepared) and evacuated further inland to higher ground yesterday. A good portion of the roof is occupied by solar panels, yikes! Good luck to you!

Just got the all clear from my Dad, everything's cool, they got about 6" of water, nothing to get excited about, they've been through this kind of thing before. Irene is starting to blow itself out. If one watches enough Weather Channel or similar you tend to get hysterical with these types of events. TV loves slow, unfolding, natural disasters. Helps with ratings. Thayer, hope you made out OK.

No problem at all. We are on the side of a hill and well clear of anything ugly. Thanks for the concern. My dad has a creek flowing through his driveway, over the yard and 16 inches in the dirt basement. His workshop is in the garage and expect there is a lot of wet sawdust on the floor now.

Thayer,

I was glad to hear that you and Fast Freddy weathered the storm O.K., with no serious damage.

When I came home from work, my mail included the latest issue of "FlyRC" magazine with the Widgeon on the cover and your excellent review/flight report inside. Thanks a lot! now it's gonna be even tougher waiting until Septober or whenever the ARFs will be shipped.

You mentioned that you feel the Widgeon is best suited to "advanced intermediate and experienced pilots". Do you think that it is any more difficult to fly than the ElectriFly PBY? I have the PBY and have found it to be well-mannered both in the air and on the water.

I'd also appreciate a quick description of how you set up your differential thrust. I have a couple of questions such as: did you set it up by slaving a spare channel to the throttle channel; do you disable the differential thrust once you're airborne; etc.?

Regards,
Grog

Grog,

I haven't flown the PBY so can only go by what I have been told by the folks at GP. They have assured me the Widgeon is the better flyer. I don't have specifics, but if you are having fun with the Cat I expect you will find this equally enjoyable.

Dif thrust is easy if your transmitter has three mixes available. I plug the throttles into separate channels and slave the aux channel to the main throttle for mix one. This is on all the time.

I then set each throttle up slaved to the rudder. On one mix I track a right rudder input with power to the left motor. The other mix is reversed, with the right motor tracking a left rudder input. They are set to give 70% power on the one motor with full rudder deflection which for some reason actually translates to about a 30% power input when you look at the servo monitor. That is a lot more than I have needed but you can always use less than full stick deflection.

These last two mixes are set up to toggle on with one of the upper switches. I fly with my index fingers on the top edge of the transmitter between the switches, so whenever a switch is "toward the middle" it is uncomfortable and a constant reminder that I have something set out of the ordinary. This makes it easy to always shut off the differential mixing before taking off.

Hope that helps.

Thayer

It looks great.
Reminds me a lot of Grumman Albatross HU-16.
http://shop.strato.de/epages/6131678...tross%20ARF%22

I like the color scheme of the latter even better.