On Sunday 9/5/2010, the Wine Country Flyers hosted a float fly at local Sal Lake up in Healdsburg.  A nice low key event, and a great opportunity for me to try out my Ultra 25e on water.

Setting up and installing the E-Flite fiberglass float kit was pretty easy.  The literature claims that you can go ‘from park to pond in just minutes’, which I’d say was accurate if you add an hour or two the first time, and 30-45 minutes of fiddling for subsequent transitions.

One benefit of using all the E-Flite recommended gear is that the CG was just perfect with no modifications required.  When we got out to the lake, the ‘ground’ handling was good, with a LOT of water rudder authority.  I was flying 4s, so R.O.W. was really easy to achieve off the still pond.

The Ultra is still very aerobatic with all that weight down there.   With a 4S 4900 on board and the GoPro, our AUW was 5.5lbs and the plane still felt nimble.

I was really nervous about landing.  I’ve seen a million videos of people nosing over and getting their stuff soaked.

This turned out to be an unfounded fear.  As long as you keep track of the plane’s shadow on the water, you can judge distance fairly well.  My landings ranged from fair to acceptable, and I called that a success.  

I shot a lot of video that day, but the most fun was the one we shot when Red Jensen was flying the plane:

I ended up flying 3 times, and had more packs ready to go when my RX started glitching.  Turns out, it’s a good idea to treat your electronics with a product called Corrosion X_before_ you hit the shores.  I lucked out in three respects- First, my RX glitched on the ground and not in flight.  Next, Andrew from the Liberty Flyers had some Corrosion X in his toolbox, and lastly, my R790 JR RX tests just fine now that it’s been treated

We’re looking forward to future trips out to the lake.  Special thanks to the Wine Country Flyers for putting on the event!