AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - November 2012 - 65

engine rpm for takeoff and climb. VY and VYSE are both 60 mph IAS. VMC is 40 mph at 3,000 feet msl, and VS is about 38 mph IAS. Normal cruise at 4,500 rpm nets 75 mph IAS, and fuel consumption is 7.5 gph total for both engines. The engines prefer auto fuel, but avgas is acceptable, too. The AirCam has electric flaps, but flaps aren’t required for takeoffs or landings. Johnson and Brown recommend half flaps for both operations. Full flaps are reserved for extreme short-field landings. Johnson recommends approaching at 65 mph for both land and water landings. “That approach speed sounds high considering the low stall speed,” he says. “This airplane has so much drag that it decelerates very rapidly in the flare, so keep your speed up.”
MOST OF THE AIRCAM’S idiosyncrasies come from the fact that its engines and pusher props are mounted well above the airplane’s longitudinal axis. Full power on takeoff creates a strong nose-down moment, so the pilot must hold full aft stick during the takeoff roll to get a positive angle of attack. As the airplane rotates, reduce back-stick pressure to maintain the desired pitch attitude. In straight-and-level cruise, adding power requires nose-up trim, and decreasing power requires nose-down trim—the opposite from most aircraft. Steep turns have a pronounced overbanking tendency, and unlike most twins, pusher props make the right engine critical. The AirCam’s single-engine performance is outstanding. During simulated engine failures, the airplane turns, rolls, and yaws in the direction of the dead engine, and full power and opposite rudder and aileron easily counteract it. Pilot workload is extremely light since there are no props to feather, mixture levers to cut, cowl flaps to open, or fuel pumps to activate following an engine failure. Just go to full power on the good engine and raise the wing about five degrees on the side of the dead engine. Even with full fuel, two people, and an 85-degree-Fahrenheit day, we were able to maintain a positive rate of climb on a float-equipped AirCam—and the spinning propeller on the idling right engine was creating more drag than if it had actually been shut down and stopped. Turns in the direction of the dead

engine, and away from it, were easily and safely accomplished. The AirCam is extremely stable, and that’s especially true on floats. Singleengine landings are almost identical to normal ones. Hold 65 mph IAS into the flare and maintain some power until touchdown. The same is true whether landing on water or a hard surface. The view from the front cockpit is so expansive that judging attitude in the flare can be tricky. Johnson sticks a piece of dark tape to the center of the windshield, and placing the tape on the horizon works beautifully for land and water touchdowns.

The only ways a pilot can really screw up in an amphibian is by putting the landing gear down in a water landing, or up in a land landing. Even though I’m paranoid about making such a mistake, I was nearly fooled into a gear-up landing on a hard-surface runway during training. “Tell all your passengers you’ll give them $20 if they catch you getting ready to land with the gear in the wrong position,” Brown advised. “If you have to pay them, it’ll be the best money you ever spend.” After my blunder, I told Harrop I’d give him $100, just to make sure.
I HAD BEEN concerned that we were bringing too much gear, but I needn’t have worried. We had plenty of space (and payload) and could have brought more.

We flew west to Tampa and followed the coastline north to Cedar Key and the Suwannee River, then tracked the river north to our first fuel stop at Cross City, Florida. Next, we traveled straight to Headland, Alabama, for an overnight stay. Our typical legs were about three hours and 180 to 200 nm. We stopped at my former home field, Gen. DeWitt Spain Airport in Memphis on the banks of the Mississippi River, and AirCam owner and pilot James Freeman flew with us on a gorgeous evening photography flight there. We had a booming tailwind on our next leg to St. Louis, but surface winds gusting beyond 30 mph convinced us to stand down the rest of the day. That meant flying three legs (7.8 hours total) on the final day of the trip to Crystal Airport near Minneapolis, and we were treated to some of the most remarkable scenery of the entire journey over the river near Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. The AirCam performed flawlessly throughout the long journey, and flying it was an absolute pleasure. Harrop calls the AirCam “a flying motorcycle that can land on water.” Takeoffs and landings are exhilarating, and traversing the continent is an out-of-body experience. The mental images that linger after an AirCam trip aren’t so much about the airplane itself as things seen and felt along the way: The smell of salt air over the Gulf; honeysuckle and pine in Alabama; burning farm fields in Missouri; dairy farms in Wisconsin; osprey, eagles, and pelicans in Florida; and herons and cranes along the river; hot, humid thermals rising air over the Mississippi delta; and cool downdrafts preceding the arrival of summer rain in the upper Midwest. And this is the way AirCam designer Lockwood intended it. “The AirCam connects pilots and passengers to their surroundings in a way that no other airplane can,” he said. “It was designed to fly low and slow, safely, in remote areas with absolutely no barriers between the occupants and their surroundings. Amphibious floats give the airplane a new dimension by opening even more possibilities for exploration and adventure.” AOPA
EMAIL dave.hirschman@aopa.org
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AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - November 2012

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