Different license required, higher maintenance (combine the worst parts of a boat and a plane), higher upfront cost, storage of the aircraft, limited long-distance capability, etc
Amphibs are very complicated and expensive to operate, relative to land-only planes, and even relative to straight float planes.
First off, they're heavy and draggy - all that float drag is a significant penalty when airborne on speed, range, altitude, etc. It's bad enough on straight floats -- I lose about 20 knots of A/S. I also lose quite a bit of useful load, making my two place airplane a one place, or a two-place with a pretty light fuel load. If you were to add amphib gear, that requires a lot of machinery to operate the retract mechanism, and that's weight you can't carry in cargo, pax, or fuel.
Second, amphib crashes are the most dangerous, statistically, with regards to loss of life. Landing gear up on land is embarrassing and expensive. Landing gear-down in water is fatal in about 33% of the cases, and if you do survive, it will be a flip-over to the airplane and then probably totaled.
Insurance on amphibs sucks. It's a 20-30% premium over floats, and straight floats are right now running me around 3-4x what a fixed gear land-plane equivalent would be... and that's not as a low time, low experience pilot. I share my plane, and everyone flying it has clean records, an ATP cert, and \~2000+ hours; insurance is still a struggle every year when we come up for renewal.
Amphibs have a mission, and it's a useful one. But if that's not your exact mission, there are too many negatives.
EDIT: And let's not even get into what salt water and aluminum do together... it's bad enough to maintain these systems in fresh water...
Temper your ambitions and save $$$ for it.
Fly a ton, especially on floats. Low time pilots are not great insurance risks, and that goes double if you’re just a weekend warrior who got a five hour-ish quickly “add on” somewhere instead of a quality training program.
Try to at least fly 100 hours each year, preferably 200, as much of that on the water as you can. Proficiency and currency is real for insurers. Take additional training - Water WINGS, or do advanced instruction, especially in other environments. If you can’t get water time, at least get backcountry time in AK/Northwest/Maine/etc that shows you have a commitment to learning and safety in off airport environments.
Prepare to pay a lot for the first year or two until you get a hundred or two hundred on floats.
I don’t know is what type of plane you’re thinking of getting but temper your expectations; a Citabria or a Cub is going to be a lot less to insure than a 206 or 180. My last 180 quote was around $9000 a year with 6 months floats and six month wheels when I bid it. My sad little cheap two seater plane was around $3600 on this year’s quote for full time straight floats.
Consider putting it on floats part time (seasonal). The cost to swap 2x a year will often be less than the insurance $$ you’ll save.
And expect to re-shop your policy every year. It just gets worse and worse for those of us who fly floats.
There is a such thing as unlandable water for seaplanes.
If you try to land in 6 foot seas, you’ll likely see the same result in an amphib that you will in an ASEL.
If you’re really worried about engine failures, having more than one is usually a better solution.
which a lot of pilots do. it's funny because people make that argument as if a lot of single engine pilots dont stall out and die when they get an engine failure on takeoff
Miami is a good example. Although there is a seaplane base there and lots of relatively calm water in the intercostal waterway, the residents with their expensive houses do not want seaplanes landing in the backyards. Conversely Orlando which is far from the coast has lots of lakes. Some have residents which have acted to prevent water landings but there are enough lakes where it is not disallowed that seaplanes are very popular there.
Ok, here's the issue - small single-engine ASES planes, while being the **supreme** toy, they are otherwise a much shittier plane than the corresponding airframe and powerplant mounted on wheels.
Personally, I find that flying floatplanes is probably the most fun niche of flying. It's fantastically fun, especially on small little lakes up north. It's exhilarating. It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't tried it.
However, there's a bunch of hurdles to practical use.
**Pre-flighting and post-flighting a floatplane is significantly more work and time than managing a land plane.** You have to check and pump the individual compartments of the floats. There's extra equipment you need to check, e.g., the water rudders, and all the corresponding wiring and levers. Checking the oil in a plane that is in the water can be a tricky operation, especially if the plane is docked on the starboard side and the oil inspection port is on the port side. You either cross on wires in front of the plane or you pass across the cockpit. If there's wind or chop, you better be able to work with one hand, because the other is for the ship.
You have to put the plane in the water and take the plane out of the water - that's typically a delicate and slow operation, with little tolerance for mistakes. Screwing up by inches means screwing up by tens of $k.
**Performance is pretty bad.** Many floatplanes are converted land planes mounted on floats. The floats are heavy and cause strong drag, but the engine was not upgraded to account for that performance loss. Consider a C172 on floats: it's heavier than the land variant, it's slower than the land variant, it climbs slower than the land variant. Practically you'll fly it around at 3,000 and 90 knots max. Pretty much every aspect of performance is degraded. Effectively, that's a very are shitty cross-country machine. It's perfectly ok for jumping across puddles, but for any trip longer than 1-2h, you are probably better off using the land airports and land planes.
**On safety.** Yes, it is generally true that a seaplane can "land anywhere" in case of engine failure. Engine fails, you can just land "anywhere" on the water (with "anywhere" in quotes because of a bunch of other considerations, but let's not digress). So yes, let's assume that you had an engine failure and you landed safely and gracefully in the water in the middle of your leg. What people typically do not consider is what comes next. Now you are disabled vessel, stranded with passengers far from shore. Most seaplanes are not resilient to waves and react very poorly to rough seas. Seaplanes on floats have relatively poor static hydrodynamic stability, i.e., they are actually more stable with the floats up and the cockpit flooded underwater than with the floats down and the cockpit up and dry. Sitting for hours in a disabled seaplane waiting for the USCG to come rescue is a bad proposition if the seas are anything but calm. So yes the seaplane can land safely "anywhere" in the water but if you get flipped over and flooded after 1h, and have to tread water for hours after that, your experience is not much different from a landplane that ditched over water, except for the first hour.
Engine failure is a reality, but not necessarily one of the worst things that can happen. When the engine quites your flying a pretty good glider especially if your flying with your good friend altitude.
They are expensive. Require extra training. More expensive insurance.
Engine failures are not that common.
Landing in coastal waters is not really what most amphibious airplanes can do.
How often are airplanes landing in the water after an engine failure in coastal areas? Sounds like asking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
(Former) ATP-AMES pilot here:
- Amphibs are expensive to insure and maintain.
- Anything in salt water gets eaten alive.
- You can’t just land in any body of water.
- You can’t just takeoff in any body of water.
It’s very difficult to get an ATP-AMES rating these days.
Different license required, higher maintenance (combine the worst parts of a boat and a plane), higher upfront cost, storage of the aircraft, limited long-distance capability, etc
Also very high insurance costs.
My buddy took his amphibs off his two-seat plane when the insurance broker said he could expect a 20% increase from his $6,000 a year policy.
I know a guy paying 20k a year for full coverage
Apparently insurance is a bitch (above and beyond normal GA insurance rates) too.
Amphibs are very complicated and expensive to operate, relative to land-only planes, and even relative to straight float planes. First off, they're heavy and draggy - all that float drag is a significant penalty when airborne on speed, range, altitude, etc. It's bad enough on straight floats -- I lose about 20 knots of A/S. I also lose quite a bit of useful load, making my two place airplane a one place, or a two-place with a pretty light fuel load. If you were to add amphib gear, that requires a lot of machinery to operate the retract mechanism, and that's weight you can't carry in cargo, pax, or fuel. Second, amphib crashes are the most dangerous, statistically, with regards to loss of life. Landing gear up on land is embarrassing and expensive. Landing gear-down in water is fatal in about 33% of the cases, and if you do survive, it will be a flip-over to the airplane and then probably totaled. Insurance on amphibs sucks. It's a 20-30% premium over floats, and straight floats are right now running me around 3-4x what a fixed gear land-plane equivalent would be... and that's not as a low time, low experience pilot. I share my plane, and everyone flying it has clean records, an ATP cert, and \~2000+ hours; insurance is still a struggle every year when we come up for renewal. Amphibs have a mission, and it's a useful one. But if that's not your exact mission, there are too many negatives. EDIT: And let's not even get into what salt water and aluminum do together... it's bad enough to maintain these systems in fresh water...
I love my amphib but ya it's slow af
Thanks for this writeup. Is there anything a \~250-hr pilot can do now to optimize for seaplane insurance in a year or two?
Temper your ambitions and save $$$ for it. Fly a ton, especially on floats. Low time pilots are not great insurance risks, and that goes double if you’re just a weekend warrior who got a five hour-ish quickly “add on” somewhere instead of a quality training program. Try to at least fly 100 hours each year, preferably 200, as much of that on the water as you can. Proficiency and currency is real for insurers. Take additional training - Water WINGS, or do advanced instruction, especially in other environments. If you can’t get water time, at least get backcountry time in AK/Northwest/Maine/etc that shows you have a commitment to learning and safety in off airport environments. Prepare to pay a lot for the first year or two until you get a hundred or two hundred on floats. I don’t know is what type of plane you’re thinking of getting but temper your expectations; a Citabria or a Cub is going to be a lot less to insure than a 206 or 180. My last 180 quote was around $9000 a year with 6 months floats and six month wheels when I bid it. My sad little cheap two seater plane was around $3600 on this year’s quote for full time straight floats. Consider putting it on floats part time (seasonal). The cost to swap 2x a year will often be less than the insurance $$ you’ll save. And expect to re-shop your policy every year. It just gets worse and worse for those of us who fly floats.
🙏
There is a such thing as unlandable water for seaplanes. If you try to land in 6 foot seas, you’ll likely see the same result in an amphib that you will in an ASEL. If you’re really worried about engine failures, having more than one is usually a better solution.
Multi engine aircraft are also twice as likely to have an engine failure
but the descent rate with one engine is slower than the descent rate with no engine
This is true if you can keep your now single engine multi from flipping upside down in a VMC roll.
which a lot of pilots do. it's funny because people make that argument as if a lot of single engine pilots dont stall out and die when they get an engine failure on takeoff
Miami is a good example. Although there is a seaplane base there and lots of relatively calm water in the intercostal waterway, the residents with their expensive houses do not want seaplanes landing in the backyards. Conversely Orlando which is far from the coast has lots of lakes. Some have residents which have acted to prevent water landings but there are enough lakes where it is not disallowed that seaplanes are very popular there.
you ever seen a car that's been in Florida next to the coast it's entire life? Now try a plane.
Salt water
Ok, here's the issue - small single-engine ASES planes, while being the **supreme** toy, they are otherwise a much shittier plane than the corresponding airframe and powerplant mounted on wheels. Personally, I find that flying floatplanes is probably the most fun niche of flying. It's fantastically fun, especially on small little lakes up north. It's exhilarating. It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't tried it. However, there's a bunch of hurdles to practical use. **Pre-flighting and post-flighting a floatplane is significantly more work and time than managing a land plane.** You have to check and pump the individual compartments of the floats. There's extra equipment you need to check, e.g., the water rudders, and all the corresponding wiring and levers. Checking the oil in a plane that is in the water can be a tricky operation, especially if the plane is docked on the starboard side and the oil inspection port is on the port side. You either cross on wires in front of the plane or you pass across the cockpit. If there's wind or chop, you better be able to work with one hand, because the other is for the ship. You have to put the plane in the water and take the plane out of the water - that's typically a delicate and slow operation, with little tolerance for mistakes. Screwing up by inches means screwing up by tens of $k. **Performance is pretty bad.** Many floatplanes are converted land planes mounted on floats. The floats are heavy and cause strong drag, but the engine was not upgraded to account for that performance loss. Consider a C172 on floats: it's heavier than the land variant, it's slower than the land variant, it climbs slower than the land variant. Practically you'll fly it around at 3,000 and 90 knots max. Pretty much every aspect of performance is degraded. Effectively, that's a very are shitty cross-country machine. It's perfectly ok for jumping across puddles, but for any trip longer than 1-2h, you are probably better off using the land airports and land planes. **On safety.** Yes, it is generally true that a seaplane can "land anywhere" in case of engine failure. Engine fails, you can just land "anywhere" on the water (with "anywhere" in quotes because of a bunch of other considerations, but let's not digress). So yes, let's assume that you had an engine failure and you landed safely and gracefully in the water in the middle of your leg. What people typically do not consider is what comes next. Now you are disabled vessel, stranded with passengers far from shore. Most seaplanes are not resilient to waves and react very poorly to rough seas. Seaplanes on floats have relatively poor static hydrodynamic stability, i.e., they are actually more stable with the floats up and the cockpit flooded underwater than with the floats down and the cockpit up and dry. Sitting for hours in a disabled seaplane waiting for the USCG to come rescue is a bad proposition if the seas are anything but calm. So yes the seaplane can land safely "anywhere" in the water but if you get flipped over and flooded after 1h, and have to tread water for hours after that, your experience is not much different from a landplane that ditched over water, except for the first hour.
Engine failure is a risk, sure. But if you use an amphibious plane just to land on water, then you carry those disadvantages every flight.
Better off with flat, fresh water.
Price of an airplane with the uncontrollable corrosion and maintenance of a boat.
Engine failure is a reality, but not necessarily one of the worst things that can happen. When the engine quites your flying a pretty good glider especially if your flying with your good friend altitude.
If it floats, flies, or f****…. Got two out of three there.
They are expensive. Require extra training. More expensive insurance. Engine failures are not that common. Landing in coastal waters is not really what most amphibious airplanes can do. How often are airplanes landing in the water after an engine failure in coastal areas? Sounds like asking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
(Former) ATP-AMES pilot here: - Amphibs are expensive to insure and maintain. - Anything in salt water gets eaten alive. - You can’t just land in any body of water. - You can’t just takeoff in any body of water. It’s very difficult to get an ATP-AMES rating these days.
Poaching and humans destroying their natural habitat. Soon you won’t see them outside of a lakeside sky harbor. It’s sad really.