38 AUGUST 2018 ÇPlane&Pilot
M
y irst lying lesson was in a
Piper J-3 loatplane on the
Hudson River in 1967. hat
exciting day led to a private
pilot license and 300 hours of land plane
time. I often returned to that Peekskill
seaplane base on the Hudson to admire a
Lake Amphibian based there.
One day the owner invited me for a
ride. We taxied down the wooden ramp
into the Hudson and, without ground or
tower radio contact, we were airborne
in minutes. hat was the day I decided
I wanted a Lake of my own.
So when I moved to British Columbia
in 1974, I was delighted to ind an ad in
the Vancouver Sun ofering a 20 percent
share in a new Lake for $5,000. I called
Ed, the Western Canada Lake dealer,and was a bit disappointed when he
explained that this Lake was the only
Lake ever made without wheels—
a lying boat, not an amphibian. He
had it moored to a log loating in the
Fraser River.
Ed’s disposition was more like my
high school football coach than my land
plane light instructors. After 10 hours
of rough and intensive seaplane instruc-
tion in Vancouver’s Fraser River delta, he
signed me of with a Canadian Seaplane
rating stipulating that I was not to land
in the sea! Ed wanted to check me out
in coastal saltwater inlets irst, so he
insisted I only land in lakes and rivers.
“Fine,” I agreed, and that night I called
my brother, Bob, and my ishing buddy,
Bill, and said, “Come to Vancouver, and
let’s go steelhead ishing in the famous
Dean River in my new Lake lying boat.”hey arrived one Friday in September,
and we loaded the Lake with ishing
gear, sleeping bags and a small inlatable
dinghy. A sparse panel and no wheels or
lights gave the Lake an empty weight of
only 1,360 pounds with a useful load of
1,040 pounds, making a sea level takeof
from the Fraser River an easy task for the
180-hp Lycoming.
We lew northwest along the rugged
BC coast towards a fuel stop at Ocean
Falls using the plane’s only navigation
instrument (the compass), charts and my
watch. It was my irst trip as a “Canadian
bush pilot.” I thought a cautious way to
land in the sea at Ocean Falls was to ly
up the inlet, just south of Ocean Falls,
and then turn north through a small,
low gap in the mountains to Link Lake,
located just above the town of Ocean
Falls. hat would put us in a position toLake Landing Lessons
By Jack Ciulla
A downwind landing is seldom a good idea.
An inexperienced seaplane pilot attempting one with huge
logs oating across the landing path is a really bad one.