Float Rudders

[will]

Last week I was flying off my friend's boat. Long story short, I landed and couldn't get the plane back to the boat because of the wind. Then the boat engine wouldn't crank and we were drifting quickly towards some rocks. I had very little battery power left but I had to spin the prop every couple minutes to keep the plane off of the rocks. I had visions of the plane going up in flames and taking the camera with it. I had a lipo catch fire a few months ago. It wasn't cool.

The next day I built a rudder that connected to the tail wheel. It worked, but it was heavy and looked ridiculous. So now it's time to fab up some semi-scale rudders.

It's hard to find a good photo of some real ones on a cub. Also, the real ones can be moved up or down from the cockpit via a cable system. I won't be going that far, although it would be nice.



I'm planning to use either a modified steerable nose wheel mechanism or some Dubro hinges.

As far as the linkage, I'll rig up something like this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MNw1ydV8eQ

[Gohmer]

Here's what I did to mine.


Tried it out this morning, had to add 1oz to the front of the LH float. Worked great.

I used fiberglass rods instead of the steel wire cross braces. Saved enough weight to make up for the servo.

[Dparture]

Long-Tail Water Rudder for Super Cub
Wondering if anyone has had some flight time with one of these air-rudder-attachable 'long-tail' water rudders... strictly speaking not a float-attached rudder, but nonetheless may provide some water yaw authority.

Curious as to whether they're really effective or do they just defect sideways?
Also, if you run up on the beach will the water rudder be damaged or might it damage the air rudder/linkages?

If they work reasonably well, seems like very simple, easily removed solution for those of us who, unlike the situation on smaller, tree-ringed ponds, need to deal with wind right down at the water surface level aka the Beach Zone...

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