I have been interested in aviation in general for a good number of years now, which led me to RC flying a little over 2 years ago after a guy in work showed me one of his planes. I also found the flite test channel on youtube and from that point there was no going back! Getting into this hobby has turned an interest into a bit of an obsession, and all my family and friends all know that I'm addicted to anything that flies!
I recently celebrated my 30th birthday, and for an awesome present my dad surprised me at my birthday meal with family with the present of a trip on a seaplane, which flies from Loch Lomond in Scotland. He knew that I'd had a flying lesson in Cessna before and loved it, and he always checks out the videos I put up on youtube of my flying, and had remembered a particular one of me flying from the shores of Loch Lomond last year with my Skywalker, so thought I'd appreciate a full size experience!
So a few weeks later along with his wife he took my wife and I out for the 50 minute drive up to Loch Lomond to go on the trip! The weather during the week leading up to my flight was terrible and I was a little worried it would get cancelled, but when the Saturday arrived it was absolutely perfect conditions, clear sunshine and hardly any wind!
The Plane
The plane is a Cessna 208 Caravan, with amphibious floats. Its run by Loch Lomond Seaplanes, who have two in their fleet, the one pictured here and also a yellow version. They operate from The Cameron House Hotel on Loch Lomond and offer various different trips along the coast of Scotland, up to the Highlands and Islands.
It seats 8 people in the back plus 2 pilots, I wasn't quick enough to volunteer to sit up front with the single pilot but I got a nice window seat under the wing! Perfect view! I've had a lesson in a 2 seater Cessna before and although its amazing I did actually find the view from the cockpit a little restricted, since the dashboard is so high, so I was happy to chill out in the back and take in the views.
The Flight
The flight took in a route along the West coast of Scotland, over many of the lochs and hills out to the Isle of Jura (famous for its whisky), then looped back around to the outskirts of Glasgow, over the Campsie hills and back around for a landing at the bottom of Loch Lomond. It was a perfect day for it, excellent visibility and little wind so the flight was really smooth. Even take off and landing on the water was a lot smoother than I was expecting! The pilot was actually Canadian, but had been flying seaplanes here in Scotland since 2003. We each had headsets on which allowed us to hear the pilots commentary, giving us details of where we were flying over and what to look out for. It was really interesting to hear the radio chatter between the air traffic control towers as we passed between different airspaces, and also the odd chirp from the airliners in the area!
We even flew alongside the sister seaplane for a while as our routes crossed!
I had my Xiaomi Yi action camera with me so just pointed that out the window for most of the flight. The pilot did warn us at the beginning not to watch the whole experience through a tiny camera viewfinder as many people seem to do, so the Yi camera not having a screen meant I could focus on taking in everything with full real world HD 3D sensors! (My eyes! :P)
Inspired
Overall it was an amazing experience, I'd really recommend it to anyone if they have the opportunity! I'm very lucky to live close to such amazing scenery, and getting the chance to take it in from a plane like this was amazing!
After the flight I was inspired, so was straight online to look for an RC seaplane to have some FPV flights from water, I found this Canadair CL-415 from Hobbyking at a bargain price so couldn't resist, and I'm currently in the process of building it, can't wait to take to the water again! :D
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