I finally did it; I got my float rating! I had always thought that this would be a fun and interesting experience, but that doesn’t even begin to describe what it was really like. I had an absolute metric ton of fun while learning how to operate a float-equipped aircraft. I loved the fact that you can get real close and personal with the landscape; ripping literally around the terrain and vegetation so that you can make that ever so short landing in that tiny and remote lake. It’s just absolutely amazing – kind of like the feeling you get when you take flight for the first time.
The aircraft that I used was a Cessna 172L – a slight variation that I wasn’t too familiar with. There aren’t any significant differences between this variant and the others that I have trained on (P, R, and S), only slight and insignificant ones. Theoretically, the most substantial difference would have been that the flaps can go down to 40° rather than just the typical 30°. This aircraft had its flaps fixed to 30° anyway, so the experience wasn’t any different. The one other difference with these flaps is the way they are applied. As with the other three variants that I have flown, there are notches in the flap selector so that a consistent flap setting can be achieved. In comparison, this aircraft had the type of selector that I’ve seen in Beechcraft Travelair and used in its simulator counterpart: a manually adjustable selector. The difference is that the selector acts as a toggle rather than an analog selector; the pilot must toggle and hold the desired movement direction and wait until the flaps are in their appropriate spot before releasing the switch. Apart from the flaps, the airspeed indicator was measured in miles per hour rather than knots, but again, that wasn’t much of an issue because there was a smaller knots scale on the inner arc anyway. The last difference that I noticed was that this aircraft is quite a bit slower – nothing wrong with that though. Regardless of the aircraft I am flying, I know deep down that this is only the start of my new addiction; it’s like nothing that I’ve experienced before.
