It is difficult to dock because of the float out at the wing tip, but it is also easy to taxi ashore. Before my Turbo Renegade flying I had always taxied up a boat ramp; in the Turbo Renegade we went easily ashore on a sandy beach. It takes a lot of power to do this, and the overhead-mounted throttle is different enough to make you think about what you are doing. The other consideration is the landing gear-up to land on water, down to land on land, down to taxi ashore but, please, up before you start a water takeoff run.
The Renegade operates
without a lot of handicaps induced by the fact that it is an airplane and a
boat. There's no nosewheel steering because having a connection between the
pedals and the nosewheel would mean holes in the hull. The airplane does fly
with some excess engine cooling drag, which you can almost feel when flying, so
the cruise speed is substantially lower than in a 270-hp landplane. But then in
a 270-hp landplane you are allowed but one water touchdown where the Lake offers
unlimited waterworks. The flying qualities of the Lake are quite good with but
one thing to note as different. Because the engine is mounted high on a pylon,
a sudden increase in power can cause the nose to pitch down. This has been
criticized by some, but it shouldn't be. As pilots, we have controls to use in
taking care of the attitude of the airplane. It doesn't take great effort to
keep the pitch attitude where you want it when the power is increased abruptly,
and anyone having real trouble with this is more a passenger than a pilot.
Why a turbocharger on a
seaplane? There are lakes in the world that are at elevations above sea level,
and on hot days even a sea-level lake has a density altitude above sea level.
The Renegade is billed as a six-place airplane, though the useful load and
balance restricts this somewhat.
