Duck on Target
We had a successful 1st Annual Last Big Splash last September with about 35 seaplanes in attendance. Many showed up the evening before for a BBQ on the shores of Lake Agnes. Later we watched a WWII film called “Coastal Command” about Sunderlands on a big screen hung on the side of our Sunderland down by the lake. It was a “big” hit!
The next day we had a number of seaplanes enter the competition and I faired pretty well with the Grumman Duck. The Duck is almost impossible to see out of because of the big engine and lower wings and I totally lucked out in the spot-landing competition. Having no idea where the two spot landing buoys were I just lined up, cut the power, and floated as long as I could. If you land before the buoy line you are disqualified, which I was not. As you can see by the above picture I was darned close! I touched down just after the two buoys marking the target line, one of which is behind the tail spray! A Husky on floats (with great visibility by the way) beat me.
Luck was not with me during the bomb drop contest and, mainly because of the visibility, I failed miserably. The “bombs” (melons) did luckily land in the lake! But in the short take-off competition I surprised myself and my competitor by getting off the water first and beating out a 450hp Dehavilland Beaver on floats! In retrospect, had I created a category for seaplanes over 1000 hp, I could have won everything in my class!
Kermit