Sea planes
 

What is claimed to be the first scheduled commercial passenger sea plane service in Europe has been started in Greece. One story about it is here.

Apparently the main problem with the service is that it's subject to being canceled because of high winds.

I'd be interested to know if anyone in this forum has sea plane experience, and what they thought of it.

most resorts in the maldives are reached by seaplane, and theres also a lot of use in canada and alaska.

and the CAribbean, and until not so long ago even the East River in NY out to fire island.

>I'd be interested to know if anyone in
>this forum has sea plane experience, and what they thought of it.

Here in Vancouver, Canada there is regularly scheduled seaplane service from the harbour to points all over the place, including Victoria and Gulf Islands. At busy times there are flights taking off every 10 minutes.

It's all controlled by a control tower on the top of a skyscraper that overlooks the harbour:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouv..._Control_Tower

"In 2006 the tower handled 62,186 aircraft movements"

As to flying on a floatplane, there's nothing like it - Fantastic. There are pics of one of my float plane trips here:

http://flickr.com/photos/geoff_ana-m...7594264014337/

Cheers,
Geoff Glave

I think they mean the first scheduled commercial seaplane service in decades. Flying boats were a popular form of air transport in the 1920s-1940s.

There are still a range of floatplane operations around the world, but indeed there has not been a scheduled service in Europe for a while.

The Greek operator in question brought their plane to London last year and showed it to the press, along with describing a most unlikely set of routes for it from London which we have heard nothing more about since.

Subject to confirmation the previous last scheduled flying boat service in Europe was likely Aquila Airways from Southampton to Lisbon and Madeira (which latter had no airport at the time), also to Elba in Italy. These were big Shorts 4-engined aircraft which took all day on their substantial journeys. Aquila had an accident in 1958 which brought the operation to an end.

The last real flying boat to come to London was about 15 years ago, another Shorts, it's the one you can see nowadays in Kermit Weeks' aviation museum in Florida near Orlando (has various items and books about flying boats, which of course are more interesting than anything you can see at Disney World :) ). It's the plane on the left hand side of their website's home page.

Seaplanes are useful for flying to or from areas in which there are no runways (which after WWII became fewer and farther apart). They are unecomical in today's commercial markets, are in almost every case antiquated in design (and those designed with jet engines have been notable failures), are unsuitable for operations in windy weather or when "the surf's up", and have a safety record abysmal compared with conventional a/c.

They are great for fisdhing trips into the back country or short flights to nearby islands without airports, but I suspect the guy in Greece will soon be out of business.

Yes. And a great view for spotting those from either Stanley Park or Canada Place.

Wikipedia is a potentially very unreliable source. There is some wrong information in there. Anyone can make changes in the articles. A few articles are locked so only people registered for more than 4 days can make changes.

Political articles can really be a hot potato. Barack Obama has a biggest internet following, including on Wikipedia. Put some negative, but true information, and watch it get taken out by supporters in a few minutes! :D

Thanks for the useful information. It looks like these seaplanes are unlikely to become a major component of the Greek transportation system.

Kenmore Air in Seattle flies to the San Juan Islands, the Olympic Peninsula, Victoria, and Vancouver, BC. among other destinations.

http://www.kenmoreair.com/index.php

Kenmore flies rebuilt deHavilland Beaver Seaplanes, pictures are here: http://www.kenmoreair.com/sub_conten...ontent_type=29

I regularly take one from Victoria to Vancouver. Live downtown and people on the other side are near downtown in Victoria. So much quicker and more convenient. Only downside is in truly bad weather (fog or very low clouds), you can have problems. And they are limited to daylight hours only (VFR flights). Definitely worth taking at least once. If you really need to cross, you always have the heli - but this is considerably more expensive.

For the floats, one company allows you to sit in the right hand seat as they only fly with one pilot. Very different view.

As far as being regularly scheduled services, the float plane companies now have flights to:
Vancouver airport
Langley
Nanaimo
Seattle (out of Victoria)
Gulf Islands (very limited)

The number of flights have steadily increased from what I can tell. So at least on the Canadian west coast, scheduled float planes are very popular. The downtown to downtown run without the security hassles of going to the airport and without the added commuting time. Likely won't work in that many places (capital located where your choices are flying or taking a ferry from the main business centre of the province located on the mainland), but it is definitely a very viable and vibrant service.

10 years ago when I was on a RCCL cruise, I had the chance to take a short sightseeing flight on a Grumman Mallard at the line's private island in the Berry Islands. I was a pleasant experience. Although the takeoffs and landings were noisey, they were the smoothest I ever experienced as the sea was dead calm. I imagine it would be rather hard had the sea been choppy.

Here's another BC Airline that operates float and sea planes.

http://www.pacificcoastal.com/live/home/index.php?id=38

We've flown on float planes (as they're referred to some places) out of Vancouver into Victoria as well as to the Gulf Islands and San Juan Islands. They're pretty common in that part of the world and some pax commute regularly between their little island paradise home and work in the big city (i.e. Seattle, Vancouver).

I also flew into a Northern Ontario fishing camp years ago and a couple of months ago we flew on a tourist flight out over the Whitsundays and the Great Barrier Reef, landing on Whitehaven Beach for a champagne toast. :) That was our first experience taking off from a runway in a seaplane that had wheels.

An acquaintance was killed in a seaplane crash many years right in Vancouver Harbour, and I think about it every time I take off in one, as they drone on and on and on before finally lifting off from the water.