MODEL FLOATPLANES at LAKE NARRACAN

Lake Narracan is situated near the town of Moe, 120km east of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia.

Some call them Floatplanes, some call them Seaplanes and some call them amphibious Aircraft. It doesn’t really matter what they are called as they are all the same in my mind !

In 1998, the Latrobe Valley Model Aero Club was lucky enough to obtain a flying site on the Southern shore of Lake Narracan, which is a storage dam for the nearby power stations. This is now the club’s main flying site and has a 100 X 25 metre grass strip and 60 meters to the north of the grass strip, as much Lake as we need for floatplanes. The level of the lake is controlled and is topped up with water from the Blue Rock Dam if needed. Other users of the Lake include a Hovercraft Club, Ski Club, Naval Cadets and General public users. There is a small Caravan Park at the Lake and it is always fully booked with permanent tenants, mainly from the Ski Club.

Graeme Blackman was the first to try flying Floatplanes from the Lake, with 2 different models on 2 different occasions but was unsuccessful in both attempts. The first successful float plane take off from Lake Narracan was at 7.00pm on Wednesday 3rd January 2001. Alan Male, the Club President was flying a 110% Sweet Stik with an OS91 4stroke engine and as this model is a proven flier that was well powered, Alan made and fitted some floats and you can see the results in the picture below. The only problem was in steering as there is no water rudder and it was found that the normal rudder was not efficient in turning the model in the wind. Alan made and fitted a Water Rudder and the model was flown again with great success.

Since then we have had several Models successfully flown from the Lake and we have had several Floatplane Events where members of other Clubs came along and flew their models. The weather is not very often on our side for Floatplane Events. If the water is too choppy, the models flip over if you get side on to the waves…….that’s why we have our rescue tinnie and a power boat on hand at all times during an event.

The Lake was emptied in April ’02, refilled in November’02, emptied in April’03 and refilled in November’03 for work on the Dam Gates & Wall and this gave us the chance to erect a jetty for floatplanes. A Grant was obtained from the Latrobe Shire and the building of this Jetty was started at Lake Narracan on Saturday 14/9/02 when the 10 posts were put into the ground, whilst the water level was still low. The "L" shaped Jetty was finally completed in November 2003.

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Building the Jetty

The Treated Pine Jetty was built in 2 sections over a year. The first section which was 8.0 metres long and 1.8 metres wide was built straight out from the shoreline and was started in September’02. The posts were put into place whilst the water level was down but unfortunately, by the time the rest of the materials were obtained the water level was up and so the first part was finished, working in and under 300mm of water.

The second part which we call the "L" extension was 5.0 metres long and 1.8 metres wide and was completed with the water level low enough not to be a problem.(3 days later and we would have been working in the water again)

Part 2 under way – posts in	Busy as Bees	Nailing on the walkway
Last touches – November’03	Finished Job – water level down	All Finished – water level perfect

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Pictures of Floatplanes at various Lake Narracan events

from 2001

Several Club Members and visitors have now successfully flown a Floatplane at Lake Narracan.

More Floatplane pictures can be viewed at a new site……..

http://modelfloatplanes.myphotoalbum.com

 

Link to Latrobe Valley Model Aero Club Homepage

 

The End