Bathing in Welzow.

This is just a short writeup, not that verbose as my trip to Friedrichshafen.

Earlier this year I did my SEP(sea) rating in Flensburg with baltic seaplane in their 172P on amphibious floats. A couple of weeks later I had the opportunity to purchase a Lake Buccaneer from the Deutsche Küstenwache e.V. – “German Coast Guard Association”. The Association and their work is a story on it’s own and hasn’t reached it’s end, I guess. Basically a couple of enthusiasts fought water pollution by mainly larger vessels in the northern sea in the late 70s through the 80s and 90s with a tremendous success for the environment. That task has been transferred now to the German Navy and the Dutch Navy is very active, too. However, operating and maintaining the Lake requires considerable more time than most land planes, especially in salty North Sea Environments. The active members grew old and so they sold the plane. The chairman and “chief pilot”, Herbert, mentors me in operation and flying the Lake, a source of invaluable knowledge and experience to me. This aircraft does require quite a steep learning curve.

This is how she presented herself at the pre-purchase inspection:

After a short familiarisation for land operations, I flew the Lake to her new home in Rheine:

Needless to say, the Lake has some issues to address in the coming years. Avionics, Paint, Interior… But I will keep her flying and given her recent home base and use, she is in great shape. Especially underneath the “clothes”.

First thing to install – after all, I started flying in gliders – was adding some wool to the aircraft. Mainly an AOA for the base-to-final turns:

I flew her landbased and did some further familiarisation training and practising flows and checks and procedures. I was astonished and have never flown any other plane so sensitive to the right balance and centre of gravity. You do need quite a lot ballast to correct the cog if training with two people up front. In Welzow we had almost 30 kg additional ballast in the very rear section of the baggage compartment to account for the training scenario.

On the way to Welzow I tried to use Wingly and posted a flight without charges to Ganderkesee, where I would meet with Herbert and fly together to Welzow. There were no takers, but the nice chaps of AKS Aviation reached out, they wanted a couple of minutes formation flying to shoot some photos. I was, of course, very glad to join in and the results are great:

Welzow is a small town in East Germany, known as the training camp of Red Bull, when they race in the Lausitz. They have an old Russian military airport with a 2000 meter runway made of concrete blocks with Night-VFR lighting. Very close there is the Sedlitzer See, the only water Sonderlandeplatz in Germany. All other seaplane bases operate under very strict rules and only with named planes, but in Welzow only the PPR is required. Frank Degen then has to “open” the lake, get his boat out and check the landing and takeoff areas for flotsam. This weekend was the season closing meeting of the Deutscher Wasserflieger Verband" and so Baltic Seaplane was there with their C172 on floats, the Verband flew with their Searey and the microlight amphibian “FlyWhale” came to visit on Sunday.

I cannot emphasise enough how helpful and hospitable the people in Welzow were, especially Frank who helped with minor and major technical difficulties, shuttled people between the hotel, the lake and the airport and is really knowledgeable especially on Lake aircraft, as he maintains a Lake Renegade.

After a couple of training flights without water contact, Saturday was the first time I put my Lake into a lake. It was a demanding, but satisfying experience and I now begin to understand why the FAA is so insistent to emphasise the difference between flying boats and float planes. They are two different things and If you want to fly one or the other, be sure to get some thorough differences training and stay proficient.

We did a lot of flying and boating training, including beaching, getting in and off the aircraft from a boat, water taxiing, preflighting in the water, mooring the aircraft and much more. I was so occupied with training, I did not shoot many pictures. Next time, hopefully, I can take a couple more pictures. I am really looking forward to continue training when the next session will lead us to Denmark for water flying training.

As always, thank you for reading.