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T&B Tidewater Seagull (seaplane)

Konrad

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Ugly as sin, but a joy to fly!

This plane handles on the water great. She gets on step real easily. And unlike a float plane the boat hull handles cross wind fine. Do set up your ailerons for a bit of differential (servo arms pointed forward a bit less than 15°). I also set a bit of aileron rudder mix (less than 8%). The air rudder is real strong! The high thrust line wasn't a problem doing aerobatics.

I set mine up as a 4cell ship with a 1350 mAh battery, a low 980 Kv motor and an APC 9x5 prop. This and a 35 amp ESC with switching BEC makes a perfect power system (I use a FrSky, FRESC32 35A ESC). I flew against (with) half a dozen Flyzone Tidewater planes and can say the Aloft T&B Tidewater Seagull set up as I did out flew the Flyzone marketed ones. (Both the Flyzone and T&B Tidewater share the same foam molds). Do try to water proof the elevator servo!
https://alofthobbies.com/emax-xa2212-kv980-brushless-motor.html
I got the Gen Ace battery and FrSky ESC from Aloft but can't find them on their site.

EPO foam* is unsuited for dark colors! My foam "Pop Corned" (aligator skinned) in under 3 minutes in the sun waiting to get on the launch dock (a wooden pallet slowly sinking into the mud). I fly in an area of the county where we have crystal clear sky. In areas with high humidity the haze may slow down the burning of the dark EPO skin. On my next one I'll strip the dark colors off with GOOF OFF and repaint with lighter colors. Also the decals are not water proof.

*EPO foam really is unsuitable as a material for building model aircraft. it is flexible, difficult to repair properly and the OEMs have yet to develope a painting procedure that actually allow a paint to bind to the EPO foam. EPO models should be limited to light colored models, trainer and entry level models where one has a low emotional connection to the model. The Aloft T&B Tidewater Seagull is one such model as it is the perfect tool to introduce oneself to flying off water.

All the best,
Konrad

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Wayne

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Have not had any issues with the decals on mine, and it flipped upside-down and SLOWLY floated across the lake.

I am impressed with how well these planes float in ground effect. I dive it down with the power off, and flare within a wing span and she will just stay right there and bleed speed and softly let down into the water or grass. Very pleasant. I wish more planes were this easy to land well. :)
 

Konrad

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She does make us look good!

I was also flying a Multiplex Pilatus on floats. I have to say the $80 dollar Seagull was as fun as the 3 times more expencive Pilatus. Actually it was better than the Pilatus as she handled the wind better on the water. Both had great roll rates! I feared the high thrust lines for the Seagull and the floats on the Pilatus would have dampened the roll. This wasn't the case. (loved it!)
https://alofthobbies.com/multiplex-pilatus-pc6.html

I really liked smoking the Flyzone marketed Tidewaters. Loved doing vertical snaps!

Now I did spend some time inverted bobbing in the lake. The elevator servo had taken on water and failed in-flight a few time. The airframe is super strong as I spun into the lake more than once! At the end of the day I had repaired the stab and one tip float. Yes, I replace the wet elevator servo 2 or 3 times. But that is a small price to pay for such a kick ass ship!

The only flaw in the kit is the black and dark green paint over the EPO beads.
I may need to get another Seagull for the S.F. Bay area.

I need to come clean. I did not pay for my model. I won it in the ISR workers raffel. Aloft Hobbies had donated the model to the raffle. Looking at the model in the box I wouldn't have purchased one. But having now set one up and flown it, I really will be looking at another, should I need a sport water plane!

All the best,
Konrad
 
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Konrad

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Yep, I purchased a second one! I had that much fun. (The first one is still with us).

I've run into an operational issue. That is the bearings on the motors are prone to rusting rather quickly. I'll need to drop oil and water displacement compounds on the bearing with a syringe.

Needing to replace the bearings I took the opportunity to drop the KV from 980KV to 820 KV as the motor pylon was going in and out of resonance far too easily (with the damaged bearings). Lowering the RPM should help with this but I needed to up the prop pitch from 4.5 inches to 6 inches to regain the pitch speed I love so much.
 
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Hank GB Z

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Konrad,

Where do you fly off water?
My dads seagull died when he crashed and it floated under a bush I had to break the fuse to get it on shore. Ours flew ok most of the time but the pylon would get loose and cause sever trim changes with small changes in power. I wanted to make it a twin. Lower the thrust line and make it look better. Not doing that now to many other projects.

Hank
 

Konrad

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Various mud puddles around Denver. What I like about the Seagull is that she flies well off of just about any grass surface. She likes athletic fields, wet or dry. Unlike most wheeled models the hull works great on long grass.

The pylon is a weak point in the design. I think I'll change out some of the mounting spreader plates for some made of fiberglass. The ABS ones are too flexible.

Much to my surprise I had no issues with the placement of the thrust line. But then my motor wasn't moving around too much changing the thrust line. My issue was with the pylon vibrating absorbing far too much motor power.

The Goof Off worked great on the EPO foam. BUT there is some EPS foam in the wing used as servo lead cover (I didn't see this untill they were gone). The Goof Off eats this so I had to make repairs with light spackel.
 

earlwb

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I have the version sold by Tower Hobbies. After you get a number of flights on it, do check the motor mount as it starts to come loose from the foam pod. You will need to glue it in. Be careful and make sure the motor incidence doesn't change. You will know for sure when it is getting loose as the prop will start to cut a groove in the top of the wing. The tail needs to be monitored often as depending on how aggressive your flying is, the tail can start to come apart on you. It flexes a lot anyway. The ESC can overheat as it is inside with no airflow, so you may need to limit your flight time so it doesn't shutdown on you. But other than that, I think that it flies quite well. Oh yeah, I affixed a couple of finned heat sinks on my ESC and that helps let me run the battery down better. But it isn't water resistant anymore, so I have to be careful taking off and landing. But in hindsight it might have been better to pull the ESC out of the fuselage, use silicone adhesive to seal it up from water and mount the ESC outside of the fuselage.

We have a number of float fly's around the state here where I am at in Texas. So one could conceivably fly almost every weekend at a lake someplace. But the flying clubs all charge a fee so it could get expensive though. Our club has a nice grass runway on the flying field, so flying it off the grass isn't a problem either.
 

Konrad

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Thank you Earl, All good points!

I strip the paint off the vertical fin and stab before applying my glass cloth. There is little point in glueing fiberglass to paint. I know it sounds expensive but I glue the glass cloth down with thin CA glue. It works great.

As for the pylon I also have found that the ABS spreader plates buckle as we tighten down the pylon. I’m now replacing these spreader plates with 3mm plywood. To help make the pylon to wing joint a bit better i’m know glueing the pylon onto the wing along with the bolts. It is easy enough to free the pylon using a 10” chef’s knife.

I’m using a way oversized ESC. I do this as the added mass works real well as a heat sink in the fuselage cavity.

I find she is a great grass ship! better than most wheeled planes in long grass!

The only operational issue I haven’t addressed to my satisfaction is that I often get the elevator servo too wet.

Now I really like to see the guy’s jaw drop when they see me going into the vertical and performing multiple vertical snaps! A 4 cell power system really does show! and with the low current draw I get very good flight duration.

All the best,
Konrad
 

earlwb

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We sort of have a standard club joke about RC seaplanes. When you go to fly at the lake, if you want to fly more than once bring another seaplane if you want to fly more than twice then bring a third one. :)
It seems like it on some days. I have a PBY Catalina, the Tidewater, a Hobby King IKON (a little smaller than the Hangar 9 IKON), and a mini Dehaviland Beaver. I used to have a really cool looking Hansa Brandenburg W.29 seaplane fighter from WWI but I got talked into selling it to someone. It actually flew like a trainer plane, very easy in the air, but a real tricky beast to get off the water with the scale floats and to land on the water too.

I almost forgot that I got a Hobby King Arctic Cat seaplane. I haven't tried it off of the water yet. But it has so much drag to it that you basically have to fly it full throttle the whole time. It takes off of the grass really well though with a very short takeoff run. It just seems to lumber around slowly. I was surprised in that it needed no trims either. I sealed up the ESC and put it on the outside.
 
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Konrad

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This Tidewater and Multiplex PC-6 actually fly off water rather easily. It did take almost a whole day to soak the rear elevator servo. I'd like to learn if there is a 9gram to 13 gram servo on the market that is water proof?

But yep water and electronics often are troublesome. I often had to open up the cases and dry them out. I also found that Corrosion-X often displaced enough moisture that the servos and ESC started to function just fine.

All the best,
Konrad
 

Konrad

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Thanks! Good to know. But she is almost 3 time the weight of the servos we see on the tail of the Tidewater.
 

Wayne

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For servos and receivers:

For speed controls:
 

Konrad

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That conformal coating works well at keeping the water out from the case and screw part lines. It does nothing for the water coming in from the output shaft. But anything to help keep things dry it a plus.

I'm thinking of using a lot of silicone grease around the output shaft prior to reassembling the servo.
 

Skye

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I just bought some on Amazon. I still have the small uv light Aloft sold me.
 

Konrad

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I'm a luddite! I really hate Amazon! They are too my mind the Walmart of the internet. I try to avoid using them for purchases. I feel that it puts far too high a price on the social structure.

All the best,
Konrad
 

earlwb

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I find it rather ridiculous to have to pay a membership fee for free shipping on Amazon. They jack up the prices to compensate for free shipping too. Walmart's website has free shipping and a lot of sellers on Ebay do free shipping too. Although with Ebay they raise the price to cover the S&H though. If I remember right Fry's electronics and some other stores sell Corrosion X in town too.
 

Konrad

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When I came to the states, I thought how weird it was that Sam's Club would want you to pay to join their club to spend your money at their stores!

There are those front end issues, but what really bothers me are the back end business practices!

The Luddite,
Konrad
 
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