Electric reality?
Water way to fly… Technical
With their own floatplane nearly ready to fly, Nigel Smith and his son Aaron decided to get their Seaplane ratings…
M
y first job was working in Labrador with a Turbo Beaver Air Ambulance on floats, and ever since then I wanted to own my own seaplane one day. As the years went by it became obvious the only way I could manage to do that was to either steal one or build one myself. So back in 2003 I purchased a Murphy Elite kit from Vancouver and a float kit to go with it. By this stage my son Aaron, who flies 737s for Jet2, was also hooked on the idea, which finally rolled out last November to start the approval process through the LAA for a UK Permit. A couple of months ago it was time to look at doing SEP (Sea) ratings and, as we both live
32 | FLYER | August 2021
Above Aaron Smith on the left, his dad Nigel Smith on the right. And Bill the micro-duck in the middle. A case of, ‘Tweedle Doon and Tweedle Dee’…?
in Scotland, it was an easy choice to select Scotia Seaplanes (DTO) for the task. Based at Prestwick Airport, and flying among the Galloway Hills, the 210hp FR172F Reims Rocket amphibian (G-DRAM) had enough capacity to enable us both to benefit by sitting in the back for each other’s lessons. It was a fairly intense course, eight hours for each of us followed by a skill test, but luckily we’d both sat the pre-requisite written seamanship exams in Aberdeen several weeks earlier – so that was already sorted. You can do the 30 question technical paper onsite with Scotia – self-study is required, and a pass is necessary before sitting the skill test. Day 1 was spent religiously going through the amphibian basics. The first vital lesson is to get a sense of ‘mode-switching’ into your head – you are either in the ‘land’ environment, or the
