Republic Sea Bee.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

One of my favourite airplanes to fly was the Sea Bee it was one of the best handling flying boats on the water of the many types I flew.

Handling wise on the water the Widgeon was probably the most demanding.

How about the rest of you people who have flown these machines what are your thoughts?

[Colonel]

You're going to kill me Chuck but what I remember ...

Take off at 70, cruise at 70, land at 70  :D

I remember being at an airport somewhere, they were rebuilding
them.  Seen a few with Chevy V-8's in them these days.

Ever fly the twin Seabee?  I never did.  Just looking at it on the
ramp - can't remember where - I was thinking that the props would
get the shit beat out of them, like this:

[img width=500 height=295]http://vizirepules.hu/wp-content/upload ... inbee3.jpg[/img]

[Chuck Ellsworth]

The twin Bee was an abortion like most other attempts to improve on a proven design.

The original Sea Bee was a really neat airplane in that it had superb water handling characteristics and it was so big inside it was like flying in your living room surrounded by glass.

As you already know I spent over half a century flying airplanes for a living and over five thousand hours of my flying time was in flying boats, I chose that type of flying because I liked doing it.

I never had the slightest desire to fly big jet airliners because that kind of flying just did not interest me.

Sure the Bee was a rather ugly looking bitch to look at parked on the ramp but once you got in it was a real nice bitch to be in and gave you a great ride.  :D



   

[Connor]

What was the Royal Gull like on the water? I have heard that it was more demanding then the Widgeon ?

Heres a picture of Seabee sliding around on the Salmon glacier near Stewart.


[img width=500 height=364]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7807/466 ... 9c36_z.jpg[/img]

[Colonel]

[quote]What was the Royal Gull like on the water?[/quote]

I have two great regrets in my life.  The first is that I was never
able to bed any of the Spice Girls, and the other is that I never
got a chance to splash the Royal Gull onto the water - paved
runways only.  Sigh.  Hurry, hurry, hurry.  Maybe Ferris Bueller
was onto something after all.

[img width=500 height=281]https://regoslife.files.wordpress.com/2 ... ueller.png[/img]

You never appreciate what's around you until you're too old.

I had no idea how cool the Cat was, that the President of Great
Lakes Forest Products had.  Otherwise I would have paid more
attention and not trashed his Cadillac.  What a snot-nosed kid
I was.  I'll leave you with a picture of an airplane that I knew for
so many decades, it was like an old friend, but weirdly I never
flew it:

[img width=500 height=333][/img]

With a bit of luck, it's still there and Tom is taking care of it. I like
to think so, anyways.

[Colonel]

[quote]a picture of Seabee sliding around on the Salmon glacier near Stewart[/quote]

Cool!  Someone unfortunate enough to have been a student of mine
was flying a Helio Courier on skiis on glaciers up there:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yu ... -1.4657619

[quote]"The snow was up to the wing of the plane"[/quote]

[img width=500 height=281]https://i.cbc.ca/1.4659811.1526070201!/ ... plane.jpeg[/img]

I taught him everything I know.  Took 2 minutes.

Shall we say, he had interesting instructor training.  So did
Photofly, for that matter  :D

Funny.  You instruct for decades, to hundreds of pilots.  You
wonder where they all end up.  I don't regret any of the CPL
or instructor ratings I did, after the insane Ontario Career
College Police - they actually have badges - decided to shut
down aviation in Ontario.  A sign that it was time to leave -
the country was too far gone to save.  Thank you, Donna Vogel.