Float planes????

[mrklean]

I was fishing medicine lake in the cities on sunday just off a dock and a float plane came in and landed on the lake, instead of stopping he just motored around on the lake for about 5 minutes driving around, then he goes and takes off. My questions do they need permission to land on a lake like they would in an airport??? For one its dangerous enough having tons of boats and jet skies flying around on the lake but having some dude drive his plane around just to show off that he has a float plane, come on.

[Fly2day]

He was in uncontrolled airspace like most small aircraft, unless he was a specific distance from an major airport, all he would have to to is announce his intentions of landing over the radio. If your in a boat you gotta get out of his way. Its the same way at airport without a controll tower, execpt the landing on water. They could have been doing training also there is a seaplane base on the south west part of the lake.

[PierBridge]

It's not allowed on the MPLS chain of lakes as was found out by a float plane pilot recently!

[hanson]

This will go back a few years but the guy who use to own the company I work for lived on Medicine Lake and flew a plane on floats out of his house on the lake.

Unlike some of the internet forwards floating around, a pilot who decides to land a plane on a lake knows what he is doing and can pull up at pretty much anytime. If you choose to drive your boat into a plane's landing path when he's on approach, I dunna. The pilot will more than likely get out of your way as someone has more at stake than the other but give a guy some room if he's trying to land.

[Sonicrunch]

Sounds like mrklean is jealous.

I was on Buffalo Saturday and a plane took off from the lake. He got off the water in only about 300 feet. I was quite impressed.

[Gus]

My opinion, but the plane operator has just as much right to be on the lake as any boat or blasted jet ski.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Well said gus. We are all out enjoying the outdoors. We just have to share and get along.

[Nick Kuhn]

I don't see it very often but when it does happen it normally looks like they are just practicing/learning water landings. They can land/take off in such a short distance and often do so in the center of a lake where there isn't much structure so they don't harm much.

[coombia21]

I think legally anybody on the water has to move out of the way when the plane lands or takes off on the water.

[tcwin]

You do not need special permission to land on a lake, (outside the city of Minneapolis chain of lakes). His motoring around for 5 minutes was probably just going back up the lake so he can take off into the wind. Plus he would need a little bit of time to reconfigure the plane for departure. Medicine lake does have a seaplane base on it( SW Corner), it is just outside of the Crystal airspace and as long as he is below 1600msl they would be under the class B airspace for MSP.

[JohnMickish]

White Bear Lake is also a seaplane base. How many other lakes are as well? Anybody know?

[PierBridge]

Speaking of float planes a friend of mine flew up to Big Sandy this weekend with another friend and all of of sudden he blew an exhaust manifold gasket/pipe. Long story short it got really loud and felt like the engine was ready to fall off. They circled Minnewawa a few times going through his emergency checklist. Once he realized amongst other things the oil pressure and other important criteria was fine he headed over to [PoorWordUsage] and landed. Needless to say the passenger was freaked out a bit.

He called another float-plane buddy who flew up Sunday with the parts and fixed it right there on the spot.

The guy who fixed it was pretty stoked as he timed the Fish Fry just perfectly!

Pretty cool stuff my friends plane does about 130 and he got to McGregor in 57 minutes from the citys!

[coombia21]

My neighbor at the cabin uses his plane to fly from north branch to vermillion every weekend then when the fishing gets bod or he gets bored he flies up to LOW to fish up there. It takes him less than 2 hours to get to vermillion from north branch.

[LMITOUT]

I've had a few float planes land on the lake while out fishing and one even waved me over to ask if I knew where so-and-so lived. Apparently he was just out for a visit.

What is even more bizarre is planes landing while ice fishing. Last year I had one land on the lake, stop and talk to someone for a while, and then take back off again. Another time one landed not to far from where we were fishing and out comes three people, ice auger, buckets, etc to do a little afternoon fishing!

[BartmanMN]

He was probably just trolling a shad rap along the weed line before taking back off.

[Tom7227]

And you guys' wives complain about how much you spend fishing? new standards are being set daily.

[PierBridge]

What is even more bizarre is planes landing while ice fishing. Last year I had one land on the lake, stop and talk to someone for a while, and then take back off again. Another time one landed not to far from where we were fishing and out comes three people, ice auger, buckets, etc to do a little afternoon fishing!

No kidding, I remember back in the day we were out fishing 9 mile flat on Mille Lacs and here comes 2 float planes. They need hardly any runway on the ice to take off or land!

Super cool!

[Sherpa]

Yeah they perform very well in the cold. The cold air lets the engine make more power and is denser so the wings make more lift.

[bturck]

I have a cabin on Knife Lake north of Mora. We have several floats that drop in from time to time. If the wind is just right his departure route takes him right over our dock, we give him a friendly wave and he wiggles the wings and off into the wild blue yonder. Pretty cool really.

[Burbot]

I remember from my float rating here is the FAR. part 91.115

(a) General. Each person operating an aircraft on the water shall, insofar as possible, keep clear of all vessels and avoid impeding their navigation, and shall give way to any vessel or other aircraft that is given the right-of-way by any rule of this section.

That being said the rules of landing on a body of water (regardless of airspace of course) is if the body of water has a public access it is "public" aircraft may operate on. Unless the body of water is specifically NOTAM or restricted (for example the BWCA).

[coombia21]

Burbot, any body of water is public whether or not there is a public access, even a flooded corn field is public water. As long as you dont touch the bottom you are not trespassing even if it is posted.

[fivebucks]

I think you'd have a hard time winning a trespassing issue on a flooded cornfield. The key to public water is it has to be navigatible. So any water that you can legally access and float a boat or canoe is public water. The key is it has to be navigatible. I don't think a seasonally flooded cornfield is considered navigatible.

[Matt C]

And you guys' wives complain about how much you spend fishing? new standards are being set daily.

I'm selling my Boat, and buying an aircraft! Oh boy, I can here my wife packing my bags already .

[LMITOUT]

I was just going through some pictures on my PC and found one of the plane I was talking about. Forgot that I had taken it.

[delcecchi]

Tell that to the guy that landed his plane on Calhoun a few years ago. He was just being a nice guy and giving somebody a lift from the range down to the cities. Was totally shocked when the cops drove up. We still laugh about that one.