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http://www.barnstormers.com/listing.php?id=461664

I'm trying to figure out what's not to love about this plane? It's turbo'd for high altitude, the Rotax is a tried-and-true engine with excellent power to weight, and it is amphibious. I'm trying to figure why this wouldn't make a great Alaskan plane. Granted it's no bush plane on land, but it has very respectable range, payload, and (improved) landing strip and water handling abilities for it's size.

Anyone have any thoughts?

No Heater!

You moving, Matt?

I have a question, if a SEAPLANE is taking off and the current is moving at 7knots
and there is a three knot wind blowing with the current, should you take off into the wind or the current?

John
I kill me

Matt,

Two of my friends built and flew Seareys for several years. They are very popular in Florida.

I would love to have one, especially the turbocharged version. With two in the airplane I would see climb rates approaching 1000 fpm. (The nonturbocharged one does okay, but climb performance is more like a loaded 150.) I figured on about 90 knots for cruise. It is a good short field airplane, and gets off the water astonishingly quickly. Its handling on the step is amazing, much more nimble than a float plane. That being said, I was never comfortable operating with much in the way of waves. There is very little freeboard and, while it may just be me, I much preferred staying out of waves above about four to six inches, a bit less than my personal maximum for a Super Cub on floats and much less than a good rough water seaplane such as a Seabee.

Handling in flight is not bad; it's not as crisp as a 150, maybe because it just isn't going as fast. (I think the quality of the work done by the builder affects handling as the two I flew were noticeably different in flight.) It has good low speed handling. I would not try to land in as much of a crosswind as I would in a 150. Part of that is because the two I flew did not have individual brakes. The very good thing is that if you start to swerve and it gets bad, a shot of power puts a lot of air over the rudder right now.

I'd be a little cautious operating off of rough strips. One of my friends hit a pothole on a runway and snapped off the left main gear.

If Colorado allowed seaplanes to land on the lakes in this state, I'd have bought a Searey a few years ago. I really like them.

If you can get a chance to fly one, take it. I think you'll really like it.

There is a review of the Searey on AVweb; I'll see if I can find it.

Warmest regards,
Rick

The Lake series of amphibious airplane came long before Searey, but they never been very popular here compared to regular high wing float-plane, because of two major issue, the first is docking this low wing flying boat and the second one is that the Lake cannot be operated on skis, just like high wing planes, wich makes it a 5 months-per-year-useable-plane (here in the freezing cold Canada).

Searey must be really cool in places like florida, bahamas, or the keys, you can land, beaches the plane and take a sun bath.

Fred

Haha, no Kyle, not right this minute anyway....

Barney, if you buy the optional heater (being that the Rotax is liquid cooled) the cabin heater is supposed to be amazingly effective. Rick, I like your input, and I realize they have several revisions of hulls over the years. The factory doesn't recommend over 12" waves, but that would certainly be a comfort level item. The gross weight is also higher on the new models. I wonder if the braking system is still the same? Their site says hydraulic disc, so I would have been surprised if that also didn't mean differential.

The Lake is much more under powered, and from what I head, not particularly nimble on the water. The epitome of water handling however is the Icon A5, but I don't have $130k to throw around, and quite honestly it's under powered for high altitude operations.

The Searey isn't low wing per say, but they don't sit terribly far off the water so true, you'd have to be a bit mindful of docking. If you waited till the water froze and were careful of really rough ice, I think the wheels would work fine on frozen lakes that are large enough, and with the tailwheel configuration, you could still slow down.... kinda.