The split horizontal tail surfaces are unusual. The inboard halves of what look like elevators are indeed the elevators and operate conventionally. The outboard halves, though, are actually large trim tabs.
Tucked neatly into the bottom of the rudder is another, smaller rudder lowered from within the cockpit and used for steering on water during low-speed taxiing. It should be retracted at other times because it is not designed to take the hydrodynamic battering that occurs at high water speeds. Also the combination of aerodynamic and water rudders can cause overcontrolling.
After removing the tie-down “lines,” we climbed into N1160L through the 2 hatches (not “doors”) that when closed are the front windshields.
With the exception of the 4 engine controls, the cockpit appears normal in all respects. The throttle, propeller control, carburetor-heat control, and mixture control, however, are mounted on the ceiling between the pilots’ seats. Most flying boats are similar because this simplifies connecting control cables to the engine. This initially confuses the transitioning pilot, and I was constantly reaching toward the instrument panel for the throttle.
Landing gear, flaps, and trim tabs are hydraulic and powered by an electric hydraulic pump. A small handle protruding from the instrument panel is a hand pump to be used if the electric pump fails. The handle is located where the throttle is on most single-engine landplanes, and every once in a while I reached for it out of habit.
After turning on the appropriate switches and energizing the starter, the 180-horsepower Lycoming 0-360A1A came to life.
Taxiing the small flying boat on land requires differential braking to move the nosewheel in the desired direction.
The run-up is similar to that of a typical landplane with one exception. Ensure that the water rudder is retracted so that it will not scrape the runway when the nose is rotated for takeoff. The flaps have only 2 positions, up and down; there is no intermediate setting. Full flaps are used for takeoffs and landings whether operating from water or land.
After a normal but noisy takeoff, I raised the gear and retracted the flaps at 75 mph. Best rate-of-climb airspeed is 85 mph.
En route to Lake Berryessa, Timm told me about the LA-4’s structural integrity. “A novice was flying one over a lake and somehow managed to stall 75 feet above the surface. The aircraft nosed down into 40 feet of water, struck bottom nose first, and then bobbed to the surface. The pilot suffered only minor injuries. The windshields had to be replaced, but there was only minor damage to the bow and wing floats.”
With the wings mounted aft of the cabin and the engine above the hull instead of on the nose, in-flight visibility is impressive.
Lake Berryessa appeared ahead and between a pair of peaks. Timm suggested that I maintain altitude for a unique demonstration. When over the lake, he asked me to reduce power to idle, extend the gear and flaps, and nudge the yoke forward until the amphibian was descending at a 35-degree, nose-down attitude. Airspeed held steady at 125 mph, and the vertical-speed indicator was pegged.
This airplane can descend like a rock without excessive airspeed. This was especially impressive because the Lake has the same glide ratio as a Cessna 172 when the gear and flaps are retracted.
Preparing for the water landing, Timm suggested that I lower flaps, and descend at 70 mph and 15 inches of manifold pressure. After trimming out the back pressure, the flying boat settled at only 200 feet per minute. Timm told me to “let the airplane touch down in this attitude. Don’t touch a thing.” This caused a little anxiety because my experience in floatplanes suggested that this was not the best way to land a seaplane, but Timm knew this flying boat intimately.
At 400 feet awl (above water level), Timm suggested also that I double-check to ensure that the landing gear is where it should be, up for water landings and down for landing on land, something about which all amphibian pilots must remain alert.
As the Lake approached the surface, I fought the temptation to flare. Before I knew it, the flying boat began skimming the water. I reached up, retarded the power, and held the control wheel aft. The airplane had not yet settled into the water when Timm surprised me by shoving the control wheel fully forward. We came to an abrupt halt.
“You can’t do that in a floatplane,” he said. “You’d probably bury a float and flip over.”
Water taxiing is a snap. Lower the water rudder and steer with the rudder pedals. It handles just like a boat, which is no surprise. This amphibian is a boat, a boat with wings.
Timm next invited me to try step turns. The flaps stay down and the water rudder comes up. Full power is applied, and the Lake begins to plow through the water creating quite a spray pattern. At about 30 mph, back pressure is released and the aircraft rises “over the hump” and onto the step. Power is reduced to about 20 inches of manifold pressure to prevent becoming airborne.
Taxi down a ramp with the landing gear extended, but do not retract the wheels until the amphibian is floating on the surface.
While zooming around the lake at 40 to 50 mph, you quickly forget that you are in an airplane. The Lake seems to handle as well as a conventional boat. We headed across the wake of another boat without as much as a nod from the amphibian.
Back over San Francisco Bay, it dawned on me that this airplane does not have the “automatic rough” commonly associated with single-engine landplanes flying over water. Happiness is flying over land or water without worrying about engine failure!
I picked up my friends at Oakland and loaded 40 pounds in the baggage compartment behind the rear seats. Minutes later we headed north for our weekend at Clear Lake, the largest lake wholly within California. Alcatraz Island slipped past our port wing.
While en route at 4,500 feet using 75-percent power, I noted an outside air temperature of 60 degrees F and an indicated airspeed of 115 mph. True airspeed was 124 mph. The Lake cruises at 131 mph at its optimum altitude of 6,000 feet.
As my experience with the Lake grew, I discovered that it does not tend to pitch up during a power decrease or pitch nose-down during a power increase, which is what I had expected from an airplane with a thrust line so high above the longitudinal axis. I could detect only slight pitch changes when changing power radically, from full power to idle, and vice versa.
On short final approach to Clear Lake, I trimmed the airplane as I had done earlier that day to make a hands-off landing. The initial touchdown was smooth and barely discernable, making a better landing without my help than with it.
I kept the amphibian on the step and played motor boat during the rest of the to our lakeside destination, the Skylark Motel and Seaport near the town of Lakeport. My apologies go to the water skier who lost his balance and literally flipped at the sight of the Lake performing high-speed 360s in the water.
As we approached the Skylark’s ramp, I retarded the throttle to idle. The amphibian gave up its speed and settled more deeply into the water. I had to be careful when maneuvering near the ramp because the approach was bracketed by a pair of docks. Seaplanes do not have brakes in the water, and the Lake does not have a reversible-pitch propeller as do some seaplanes. Closer to the ramp, I extended the landing gear, which further slowed the aircraft and were needed to taxi up the ramp and onto land.
The ramp was only 50 feet ahead and I slowed to a crawl. I made my final cockpit check; a green light on the panel confirmed that the landing gear was down and locked.
As the nosewheel touched and began to roll up the sloping ramp, I applied a fistful of power and raised the water rudder. The amphibian leaped out of the water and up the ramp. We parked on the motel’s grass lawn.
After lunch, I preflighted the Lake, drained a little water from the hull, and prepared for recreation on the water. Before you could sing the first verse of Anchors Aweigh, we had taxied down the ramp and were moving toward open water. I raised the landing gear and completed a run-up.
/>
Even with full power, the Lake accelerates slowly in the plowing phase of takeoff. The hull is still fully in the water, and the aircraft has insufficient speed to get onto the step. Once the aircraft began to rise from the water (about 35 mph), I released back pressure. The Lake rose smartly onto the step and picked up speed. We were soon airborne.
Minutes later, we flew over a remote cove, an ideal place to land and break out our picnic basket.
After landing, I approached the beach slowly, threw open the port hatch, and stuck the oar into the water until I felt it scraping bottom. I killed the engine with the mixture and allowed the aircraft to beach.
My friend and I jumped out of the aircraft and in the style of Sir Walter Raleigh carried our female companions ashore.
When needed for shelter, the Lake quickly converts to a sleeper for two. The rear seats are easily removable, and there is ample room to stretch your legs into the lengthy fuselage.
The next morning I stepped out of my second-story motel room and onto the veranda. I looked down and saw that the Lake was surrounded by curious and envious onlookers. Not many of those who had checked into the Skylark on the street of the motel expected to see an airplane parked on the lakeside lawn.
An oar comes in handy if the engine fails before reaching shore.
We spent the rest of the morning and much of the afternoon exploring, sunbathing, swimming, and fishing from the hull of the amphibian in a beautiful, sheltered, and, I might add, romantic cove.
We could have legally and safely water skied behind the LA-4 if it had been equipped with suitable quick release mechanism for the ski rope.
The time came too soon for the last leg of our flying vacation and the inevitable return to reality.
We called McCarran Approach Control for permission to enter the Class B airspace surrounding Las Vegas, Nevada.
“Sikorsky Two Eight Victor, you’re cleared into Class Bravo airspace. Descend to 2,700 feet.”
I replied by saying that 500 feet over the city seems a bit low.
“You’re a helicopter, right?”
“Negative. We’re a flying boat.”
The pregnant silence was followed by instructions to maintain present altitude.
One cannot blame the controller for believing us to be a helicopter. There are very few Sikorsky airplanes in the air these days, but there was a time when the Sikorsky was Queen of the Sky.
The legendary designer, Igor Sikorsky, was born in 1889 and emigrated from Russia at the onset of the Bolshevik Revolution. He arrived in the United States in 1919 and developed the world’s first practical helicopter a few years later.
Because there were so few airports and is so much water, he focused his great intuition and engineering genius on seaplanes, airplanes that “could take their airports with them.” His first certified airplane was the Sikorsky S-38 Amphibion, a spelling preferred by Mr. Sikorsky.
The airplane was developed primarily for Pan American Airways. The fledgling airline used the 8-passenger Sikorsky to expand its route structure from 90 miles (Key West, Florida to Havana, Cuba) to a 13,000-mile network that included more of the Caribbean as well as Central and South America. Pan Am was so pleased with the 7-hour range that it purchased 38 of the amphibians. Its expanding operations eventually evolved into the halcyon era of the China Clipper.
Charles Lindbergh flew an S-38 for Pan Am on proving flights between Miami, Panama, and Rio de Janeiro. Hawaiian Island Air Services used Amphibions to provide inter-island service, and Western Air Express used them to serve Avalon, a tourist resort on Santa Catalina Island off the coast of southern California. The Sikorsky amphibians proved to be rugged and reliable in what were occasionally difficult operating circumstances.
Larger and faster seaplanes followed in the wake of the S-38. The final Sikorsky seaplane was the long-range, 4-engine VS-44A flying boat (not an amphibian) that provided the fastest (183 knots) military passenger service across the Atlantic to Europe during World War II. The Great Seaplane Era ended soon after the war, and Igor Sikorsky shifted his attention to helicopters.
The S-38 made its maiden flight from the Sikorsky Manufacturing Corporation in College Point on Long Island, New York on June 25, 1928. The amphibian caught the attention of Martin and Osa Johnson, a husband-and-wife team of explorers, naturalists, authors, and motion-picture producers.
The Johnsons had spent years in Kenya, the Congo, British North Borneo, and the South Pacific taking more than 10,000 photographs of animals, people, and places that had never before been seen through a lens. They also produced nine full-length motion pictures and 17 shorter films (using hand-crank cameras) that captured the public’s imagination with these first views of the customs, cultures, and civilizations found in remote regions of the world. The Johnsons wrote 18 books, one of the most popular being I Married Adventure (1940), a best-seller written by Osa.
Perhaps the best way to put the Johnsons into perspective is to say that they were during the 1920s and 1930s what Jacques Cousteau was during later years.
The Johnsons painted their Amphibion to resemble a zebra and called it Osa’s Ark. It was used to make their first flying foray into “darkest Africa.” They also purchased a smaller, single-engine Sikorsky S-39 (NC-52V) to serve as a companion aircraft. It was painted with the reticulated pattern of a giraffe and was called the Spirit of Africa. Their pilots on this journey were Boris Sergievsky and Vern Carstens. (Carstens taught the Johnsons to fly and eventually became manager of flight test engineering and chief test pilot for Beech Aircraft.)
Flying in Africa in 1933 and 1934 was as primitive as the lands over which they flew. Airports were scarce, and inaccurate maps provided misleading guidance. The Johnsons were the first to photograph Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro from above.
Coincidentally, another Johnson used a Sikorsky Amphibion for a 15,500-mile expedition to South America. S.C. Johnson was in search of carnauba, a vegetable wax exuded by the leaves of the Brazilian carnauba palm. SC Johnson & Sons is perhaps best known for Johnson Wax.
Of the 111 S-38s manufactured, none survived. Wanting to take his two sons on a recreation of his father’s 1935 expedition to Brazil during the Great Depression, Samuel Johnson, commissioned Born Again Restorations of Owatonna, Minnesota to build an S-38 from scratch using plans that thankfully were still available. The flight was made in 1998, and the Carnauba now resides in the Johnson Museum in Racine, Wisconsin.
R.W. “Buzz” Kaplan, Born Again Restorations’ owner, and his friend, Tom Schrade, a real estate investor and developer, were enamored by the aircraft and decided to build a second S-38, a restoration of Osa’s Ark that is the subject of this chapter. It is considered a restoration because it includes the wings and tail booms of an original Amphibion. The project required an investment of 2.5 years, 40,000 man-hours, and more than $2 million. Gary Underland was the artisan and primary builder of both S-38s.
Schrade and Kaplan had planned to fly their aircraft to Africa until Kaplan perished in his 1917 Curtiss JN-4 Jenny in July, 2002.
(Richard “Dick” Jackson of Rochester, New Hampshire rebuilt a single-engine S-39 that is emblazoned with the giraffe-like markings of the Spirit of Africa. N50V, which is the original N-number, is the oldest Sikorsky airplane in the world and is the only airworthy S-39.)
The Sikorsky S-38 Amphibion is one of the all-time great airplanes from aviation’s Golden Era. One of its most distinguishing features and a Sikorsky trademark are the twin booms that keep the tail high above the water and in line with the propeller slipstreams (to enhance the effectiveness of the elevator and twin rudders). The airplane is a labyrinthine maze of struts, braces, supports, and wires that provides a rigid structure for the parasol wing, lower wing, tail booms, and the fuselage, which also is the hull and is divided into 6 watertight compartments. Lateral stability on the water is provided by a pontoo
n (float) under each of the lower wings.
The S-38 is a large airplane with a 72-foot wingspan, about the same as a Ford Tri-Motor, but do not call it a biplane. Because the lower wing area is less than half that of the upper wing, the S-38 is more accurately described as a sesquiplane.
Schrade’s airplane, NC-28V, is pristine, apparently better than when it originally left the factory, but there have been a few significant upgrades. A tailskid would not be conducive to operating from hard-surface runways and taxiways, so it was replaced with a robust, fully-castoring tailwheel borrowed from under the nose of a Cessna 182. A pair of supercharged Pratt & Whitney R-985, 450-hp Wasp engines (sans cowlings) replace the 420-hp versions. The Johnsons would no doubt have paid a king’s ransom for the pair of Garmin global positioning systems, moving-map displays, and other modern avionics on the instrument panel. The Johnsons wrote that “it was not unusual to get lost flying over Africa [during the early 1930s].”
The cabin has an “air-yacht” configuration almost identical to that of the original Osa’s Ark. It has the appearance of a stateroom on a luxurious, turn-of-the-century seafaring yacht. There are curtains to keep the sun out, thank you, two bolted-down wicker chairs on the right, a divan that seats three on the left (a total of 5 passengers), and beautiful mahogany paneling and trim. A storage cabinet contains the elements needed for libation as well as a pullout table upon which to place the glasses. (Osa used the table for writing.) The rear of the cabin has room for a toilet and baggage.
A delightful feature is the hatch on top of the rear fuselage. It allows a passenger (or two) to stand and stick his head and shoulders out for a magnificent panoramic view in any direction. The vista is especially exciting when standing there during flight.
One of the Johnson’s movies, Baboona, includes a scene that shows Osa’s Ark surrounded by a pride of lions. Osa opens the S-38’s hatch and quickly closes it as lions try to jump in.
Dream Aircraft Page 19