Dornier Seastar

[mag check]

I know there was a thread running about this aircraft before, but I think it's time for a new one.

This 6 million dollar aircraft is going to be assembled in Canada, and I think it is an embarassment that this is going to be assoiciated with Canada.

What kind of engineer designs an aircraft that has a fuel tank capacity that exceeds the aircraft's useful load?
They are advertising a useful load of 2911 lbs, yet it has 458 us gal useable fuel capacity, that is 3206 lbs.
Why have a fuel tank so big you can't even fill it up?

Add in the fact hat you can't dock it because of the side sponsons, and it is really poor.

They are trying to market this as a twin otter replacement, and claim to have 25 orders.

What do you think? Will it replace the twotter?

[Liquid Charlie]

If it brings jobs to Canada why not support it. If they can sell it great -- if it's a lemon or if it's a success is all in the hands of the consumer --

The 2 otter is not without it's faults too

[kevinsky18]

They may anticipate future increases in Gross weight. When the 182 was first released it had a gross weight of 2600lbs. From the factory they slowly increased to 3100. You can now get upgross kits that take an older 182 and bump it up to 3350lbs gross.

I believe the Donier Seastar is all composite and I do like that for Saltwater operations.

Developing a plane from scratch and getting approval is a monumental feet. Good on them for doing it. Good for us as Canadians to have another aircraft manufacture.

my 2 cents

[mag check]

If it brings jobs to Canada why not support it. If they can sell it great -- if it's a lemon or if it's a success is all in the hands of the consumer --

The 2 otter is not without it's faults too

Seeing that it is going to be in North Bay, or the Montreal area, I get that feeling that WE are going to be paying for those jobs as taxpayers.

[capt.pilot]

I got to agree with Mag Check perhaps maybe not in design because it is rather unique, but it will not replace the DHC6... What happens when you want to use the Seastar in the Artic during the winter? Run it on Wheels? or go into off strip? , or skis?. In limiting the market use for the seastar, they limit their potential sales.. If I was running the business more would always be better...

With Viking set to roll out the production models shortly (if they haven't already done so), why buy the Seastar when a DHC is 4.5 Million a copy. If you want to talk about a truly canadian aircraft, DHC started that way, and is re-starting that way. Maybe another 600K to outfit it for Floats (Wipline) and you have a more useful aircraft in everyway (Load, #Pax, Year Round use..)

If they can make a viable business of it, good luck and best wishes. But it might be slated for a very small niche market...

[supercub7]

If they can make a viable business of it, good luck and best wishes. But it might be slated for a very small niche market...

I agree with the very small market, your passengers would have to be blind to fly in such a hideous aircraft .

[Liquid Charlie]

I spoke with the crew who were ferrying it to Florida - it's not a DHC-6 replacement - they are thinking more of the flying boat market - which means year around water. Not a lot of places like that in Canada and besides Canada is such a small market - if they are going to build it here there must be some financial advantage - you certainly could never make money trying to sell an airplane in Canada only.

Seems to me the only good thing I can remember about the T-Otter was I could drive it in my shirt sleeves in the dead of winter -- - never did like that airplane much

[bronson]

Biggest problem I see is trying to taxi the dern thing x-wind. That and not very deep V on the hull.

[Meatservo]

I spoke with the crew who were ferrying it to Florida - it's not a DHC-6 replacement - they are thinking more of the flying boat market - which means year around water. Not a lot of places like that in Canada and besides Canada is such a small market - if they are going to build it here there must be some financial advantage - you certainly could never make money trying to sell an airplane in Canada only.

Seems to me the only good thing I can remember about the T-Otter was I could drive it in my shirt sleeves in the dead of winter -- - never did like that airplane much

Someone who doesn't like the twin otter? Now I've seen everything.

[Liquid Charlie]

Damn -- I guess I just committed the Canadian sacrilege -- never was a fan of any DHC product -- except for maybe the Chipmunk - guess i spent too many years in a whoredyne, bug smasher and douglas racer --

[SheriffPatGarrett]

To bump up an old thread...anyone heard anything from the Dornier operation?
No one answer the phone in St John, everybody got laid off but seem the Germans are still busy oversea.

Got to fly it some time ago...it is an extremely agile set up in the water, feel like a seadoo!
It is grossly overweight, barely legal to carry one pilot.
But this is because the Dorniers experimented with various hulls, sticking one under the other
regardless of the weight. Now they have a reasonably seaworthy shaped one(steep enough)
The lightened production version is supposed to have a much better
payload than the Twin Otter, they say.

It's not a speed demon, push it and the tail start shaking. The rear prop has to be smaller due to stress
from the front one.

If they reinforce the tail, make it a stand up cabin like the Mallard as they glue on the final bottom,
that would make it a great airplane! Worth every millions they ask for.
For let's face it, the Twin Otter is a joke on heavy seas!(Does not even have water rudders!
Dornier have a huge one.)

If I had my druthers, I'd like the initial prototype better, it had the wing of
the Dornier DO-28A and wing struts, that I flew...what a wonderful airplane!

But the test pilots landed with the gear down...in the water.
So the next prototype had the wing of the 228...not so hot, in my humble opinion.
Faster, maybe, but with the DO-28A wings, you coulda flown backward
in heavy seas!

[xsbank]

Nicely made, totally impractical, in fact useless POS.

[SheriffPatGarrett]

Impractical? How so?


1-Docking? with the proper sponsoon bumpers, it'll dock way easier than the twotter,
it's all plastic, remember, you glue there whatever you need.

2-you don't have to worry about beheading folks with the left engine on the dock anymore,
or cooking the right engine due to long dock idle time(inside cowling overheat).



3-the big cargo door is on the left side, and nearly flush with the dock,
no need to climb waaaay up there(and take a dive!)!

4-Standing on the roof/wing, you can work on the engines easier than at the shop,
drop a wrench or that expensive part? Just pick it up on the roof/wing!

5-Taxi-ing downwind? No worry about diving like a submarine and flipping over like on these De-Havz,
also, say goodbye to sailing blindly backward into God know what!

6- It has deep V hull now, so hello heavy seas...no bother! and both high lift and high speed wings.
De Hav's big fat wings way out there! They cost speed and control on one engine!

7-Lose one engine, just somewhat reduced performances, unlike the loaded Twotter on floats,
where it is a dire emergency! and forced landing in most cases!

No, the only competition for the Dornier would be the turbine Grumman Mallard, an airplane vastly superior
to both Dornier and Twotter...but it has been grounded permanently due to the need
of new wing planks...the old ones being unable to hold in the fuel
(nasty leaks on the electrical panel) and repair patches
where hiding fatigue cracks.(Miami crash)

Me? If I had that kind of money? I'd fix new wings on a Turbo-Mallard
and I'd be off in the wild blue yonder!
Man, it has seven hours of fuel with still some good payload, goes 190 if I remember right,
has a big stand up cabin, can fly slower than the otter and land in as big a sea as a CL 215!

[esp803]

More importantly, how easy is it to get drums in and out of, load with moose meat, how many canoes can it take, can it sit 19, can you get a sheet of plywood in it.

Unfortunately for a commercial float plane I think these are the critical questions. It reminds me of a couple years ago when a sales person was trying to push GA8 Airvans to operators in the Yukon. All potential sales ended in minutes with the question "Can you fit a sheet of ply inside?".

It might have a market in places like the maldives, but having never flown there I couldn't begin to speculate. It would make a pretty sweet private plane.

E

[SheriffPatGarrett]

India and China just opened up for flying smaller non-airliners, that would be a huge market.
Also Indonesia have 300 million peoples scattered on small islands...

That's if the Germans get off their butt...there's still a jungle factory at Penang, Malaysia with
trees growing through Dornier's molds and machinery...
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/ ... 02842.html
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... unk-21498/
The plane still need work, but with the impending doom in zeropa...

[SheriffPatGarrett]

load with moose meat

You mean how many freezers and antlers!



I'm afraid we'd have to lash these on the sponsoons!

[Meatservo]

Personally I'd rather not put that shit in my plane anyway. I'm not sure I've ever really understood the American obsession with using dead stuff to decorate their houses.

Still, I was actually thinking the same thing. Getting a drum of diesel fuel into and out of that seastar looks like it might be a little tricky. Don't get me wrong, it looks like a fun plane to fly, but I don't agree that it would be easier to dock or taxi, or that it would have anywhere close to the take-off and landing performance of a T.O.

But hey, if there was a job where I could fly that thing and never have to load another drum, or sheet of plywood, or greasy drill casing... oh, wait, I prefer all those things to whiny, dirty passengers. Never mind. Forget the Seastar, man.

[xsbank]

So to dock it you shut off the front engine and open the window, stand on the seat and climb out on that plastic sponson and grab the dock?

To leave the dock, you close the back door, run (on your knees) to the front, climb back on the seat, crawl out on the sponson and turn loose, then you sit in the wet seat ( it rains a bit in Canada) and fire up the rear engine and hope you managed to get away from the dock so you can go into forward thrust because the tail is too low to clear anything you can't back up... Pilings are not an issue...

Open the rear door to grab a dock just as a boat goes by and the swells fill the cabin, but that's ok coz it's plastic.

[xsbank]

Next to a dock, if you can actually dock the thing, to get out the passengers can't stand up so they duck walk onto the sponson because the door is, what, 4 feet from the dock?

POS.

[SheriffPatGarrett]

This is purely academic as I dont think Conrado will ever get his fingers off his butt(It's been thirty bloody years!),
but there is a big pilot door right by the sponsoon, easy to get on, there's also five feet between the sponsoon
and the wing, the pax, unless they are 98 years old, can hop easy on same sponsoon then on the dock.
Of course, you want a regular ramp for city people or freight, the same as on the Otter.But it is a shallow incline here.
Like on the rear of a speedboat, there an unfolding step in the back of the left sponsoon.
You could put an anchor chain in the nose compartment...(just kidding)

If you can handle a norseman or an otter, this is a piece of cake, about the beaver's difficulty level.
And it is about like the single otter sizewise.(without the enormous tail to screw you up in crosswinds!)

I think nothing will happen, unless a Chinese or Indian billionnaire step in,
then you will see the thing all over the place...mark my word!



To be hit by these two props, it's like sticking your head in a guillotine,
you have to put effort into it!

[Meatservo]

I kind of like it. I'm sure that if you can dock a twin beech, you could probably figure out a way to dock this thing. And people seem to love those twin beech things: Why, I don't know. Otherwise, why not have a co-pilot? They're very useful. Don't worry about getting drums into the cabin: Let the copilot do it! Don't worry about jumping out to tie up: let the co-pilot do it! Easy!

[SheriffPatGarrett]

Personally I'd rather not put that shit in my plane anyway. I'm not sure I've ever really understood the American obsession with using dead stuff to decorate their houses.

Wonder where we got this obsession?

Gaelic tribes in Europe invented the fireplace as a display for enemy skulls.

Also the golf ball was initially an enemy's dried brain(rendered on said fireplace),
batted with the shillelagh(future golf club) toward same enemies,
as in "King Sullivan spent his life with two brains in his head"...


True, you Zeuroz are all vegetarians now!

[Meatservo]

I'm not a vegetarian. I just don't play with my food, and I don't think of game animals as my "enemies".

[trey kule]

You only kill the ones that are dangerous or delicious.

As far as the plane goes, I can see a definite role for it doing marine surveillance, and that market alone, will keep demand going for years..It might be that Canada has already thought about that with regard to the manufacturing, and in that and similar roles all the plywood fitting, drum rolling, docking issues are really moot...and as far as I know here in China the only time float planes (amphibs) ever touch down in water is during training.

I can recall 20 years or so ago when the Caravan was trying to get past their Fedex market and doing tours of Canada. People were all saying 'who would pay a milllion dollars for a plane to replace the beavers and otters, navajo,s , and others..' It seems they did not quite understand the market.

I wish them all the best in this adventure though I would not rely on Indian or Chinese billionaires to fund a plane to be built in Canada.

[SheriffPatGarrett]

a plane to be built in Canada.

It'll never happen here...no one have answered the St Jean phone for a couple years now...Had sales but not the extra finances needed to actually build.
Dornier and associates seem to have been a dollar short and a day late with their aviation ventures specially the turbo-prop and jet 328.
The 228 is built in India then shipped to Munich to be assembled by RUAG...an expensive way to build a plane(government way)