Yep, the Twin Otter on Floats (Straight) can carry about 15 people with luggage and proceed to fly for about an hour and a bit and land with reserves. On Amphibs it carries about 10 to 12 people with bags and can fly around for about 30 to 40 minutes and land with reserves. It’s a huge penalty with Amphibs, especially if you can’t have an up-gross weight increase (13’000 to 14’000 pounds) which would make this mod worthwhile.
Having a aircraft built as an Amphib, with mostly composite structures and higher cruise speed with these engines makes a strong selling point in my view.
The PT6-27 or 34’s are thirsty (SGR) when strapped to a stoll airframe that was made in the 60’s and then rebuild circa 2010. Looking at the numbers the Cessna Caravan would be the winner here hands down except that it’s not a stoll airframe (Yet).
Given the comment about it being better for big water operations is quiet interesting and I hope the trials prove Dornier right. The deep Keels on the Wipline Floats offer a distinct advantage to date for this sort of operation though. Nobody would want to put 6 million dollars worth of aircraft through this sort of punishment on a regular basis if they had any sense. Maybe a 2 million dollar aircraft but 6 million!

Nice shots! That was me up the front that time!!:rolleyes: We do two Oban runs a day and one Tobermory as well. This will be five days a week until we have more crew here (Two more arrive this May). Otherwise we’re looking at another aircraft and some more interesting destinations in the near future.
So stay tuned and please come up to ask us any questions if you want! We’re not lepers ok!

Thanks again for the shots,

Floatjockey!;)

The news from LLS.

Good evening guys, great shot’s again and well noted!
I like the fact that for the first time in my career I’ve been captured doing things which I remember specifics about!
It might sound unusual but little things happen all the time during the course of ones daily routine, such as a vessel berthing or releasing from a quay which needs special attention and or consideration, so to see these shots months later is fascinating.
With the landing shot, which you mentioned as being “sneaky”, was in fact, but only if you consider this type of flying to be rigid and controlled much like the rest of aviation normally is. 😉
Float flying is all about discovering what choices you have and experience tells you whether you can make them work given the conditions.. any way I’d like to tell you all a little more about our future plans ok!:)
We only have a couple more days of operations to Oban left. This month has given us more cancelations due to weather than the last five put together hence our absence from the Clyde.:o
In these last few days we are going to be doing tours out of Loch Lomond and exploratory flights before we wind it up for the winter. Our main agenda for next year is to develop the services to Oban, Tobermory and Skye. We are also looking at building a facility in Glasgow to resemble a float base and check-in facility you will all be proud of! Hopefully.. 😀
Yes Tartan Pics, we do plan our work and provide a time table to our passengers!
The term we use is “regular services” and they are regular, meaning we plan them to a schedule and fly them to a schedule providing we can operate within the given weather conditions. This is might seem a little odd to those seeing seaplane services for the first time but really we’re just working with the conditions we get and within our comfort zone all the time.
I’ve had only a couple of days flying in the past five months which meant a diversion en-route and otherwise I’ve cancelled about 8 days as well out of five months on the West Coast of Scotland. Many thought it not possible but again it’s never been tried really. I’d be the first to say it presents some challenges but really we’re blessed with the changing conditions we get as they allow us great flexibility also.
The main difference between us and the larger companies is that we treat every passenger more personally. We call and advice in advance if there is any likelihood of delays or cancelations so they can re-plan or reschedule their trip.
Otherwise I really look forward to having you guys aboard soon too!
Merry Christmas and a very Happy and Safe New Year!

Andy

About the seaplane operation..

Great shot’s there RAB, for your info the seaplanes services are going really well. We’ve flown over 1400 people in this aircraft since the launch of services in August. We’ll be putting this one in the hanger from December-February and all services plus a few new ones will commence in March 2008. We’re going to run this operation as late as we can reasonably expect as the demand is there but will shut down through the winter to work on the aircraft, base, expansion plans and acquisition of another aircraft. We’re looking to have a three aircraft operation by the end of next years season so stay tuned:) . If your interested you might be reading a little bit about the flight you see us in there yesterday as I had Murdo Morrison on board from Flight International. We had a charter to Tiree and over to Oban and he joined us for the trip. It was a great days flying and with 65 km plus vis out on the west coast you would have been in awe! Had a head to head fly past with a Tornado of Mull which was fun also…:eek:
Here’s a shot of us on the apron at Tiree.