DC3 Dakota / C47 Sea planes.

[Huntsman]

I'm not really a plane nerd, but a DC3 Dakota is my lottery plane.

I never knew until today that there had been a few with floats, any still flying?

[Simpo Two]

So boats aren't costing you enough and you want to move up a league...?

[Eric Mc]

Simple answer - no.

There were a few experiments with fitting floats to C-47s during World War 2 - but no production versions were ever built.

[Huntsman]

Simpo Two said:

So boats aren't costing you enough and you want to move up a league...?

Ha ha! No.

Eric Mc said:

Simple answer - no.

There were a few experiments with fitting floats to C-47s during World War 2 - but no production versions were ever built.

Thanks, suspected as much, would be mighty cool.

[Eric Mc]

There was also a glider version proposed -

[SlipStream77]

N130Q was fitted with floats in the '90s, it appears to still be flying.

http://www.dc3history.org/floats.htm

http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Resul...

ETA. A bit more research suggests that it's been converted back to a regular a/c.

Edited by SlipStream77 on Sunday 26th June 22:52

[eharding]

SlipStream77 said:

http://www.dc3history.org/floats.htm

"Pilots found the C-47C difficult to launch in rough water, and performed like a pogo stick when landing on anything but a mirror smooth body of water. It had a high tire failure on land, and was difficult to handle in a crosswind landing. "

What's not to like? Much like operating a Pitts, really.

Hmmmm....Pitts on floats (although this looks more like some bastardised Startduster)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUhriD9i7zI

...barking. Love to see what happens in a flick-roll.

[Huntsman]

How much would an airworthy one cost?

Could you run one in a touristy location doing pleasure flights? Taking groups of people the the Alps for ski trips?

Could it be viable enough to cover the running cost?

Is the red tape all too hard? Too costly?

[Eric Mc]

The floatplane version of the C-47 was never given any sort of civil certification as far as I know so it would be very hard trying to get it certified almost 80 years after the original.

Junkers did something similar with their Ju52 with considerably more success. Indeed, it might have been the existence of the Ju52 floatplane that spurred the Americans to investigate the feasibility of a C-47 floatplane.