I've been flying canoes on the side(or both sides) of my Beaver all summer and haven't had a problem but have been asked many times by customers if one has ever come loose or been lost. Anyone out there have any stories or anecdotes to tell of externals coming loose or coming off altogether...those that have survived to tell of course.

Norcanair pilotn had a boat fly off the old swine years ago.It damaged the hor. stab and the pilot had to use trim to land.Heard of a few canoes comeing off a 185 with no damage.

When I have the canoe strapped onto my 180 and I'm ready for departure, if you can get it off without undoing the straps, you can have it! It's not coming off!

It is NOT recommended to carry a external load on both sides of a -2. You can disrupt air flow over both sides of the horizontal stab and lose elevator control. A load on both sides of a -3 is fine because the stab is up high away from the load.

IT'S NOT RECOMENDED TO PICK YOUR NOSE WHILE FLYING IN ROUGH AIR EITHER, BUT WE STILL DO IT!!! CANOE'S DON'T DISRUPT THE AIR FLOW ALL THAT MUCH.... THEY ARE QUITE AERODYNAMIC COMPARED TO LUMBER OR OTHER SHIT YOU MIGHT STRAP ON THE FLOATS.

There's a 14ft boat hanging in the trees not too far from one of the outpost camps here.. Heard some rough/bumpy weather caused it to come off a -2 many moons back. Not sure how the aircraft faired.. but it's not sitting in the trees anywhere near.. so I'd assume they did ok!

The stance TC is taking on external loads can be traces to this incident.

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/en/reports/air/200 ... 2C0143.asp

basically someone has 2 canoes on a hot day with pax, the a/c couldn't get a whole lot of altitude. Other factors caused an engine failure and the aircraft was force landed away from water. TC uses this to point out that external loads are not safe and should have an STC

We don't need STCs to fly loads, in the example above 2 canoes on a hot day was not the best choice. Yes an internal load in an otter on a hot day will still result in a low cruise altitude, that doesn't seen to enter into the argument.

I'm not saying not to carry 2 canoes. I have carried lumber on both sides before. Pick you days and limit the internal load with a tie-on.

Lets not give TC any more reason to pursue this BS STC thing.

I had the back strap break on a canoe. Which caused the canoe to work itself loose from the front strap. It hung on by the "just in case rope" I had tied to the front cleat. It stayed 45 degrees out from the airplane and gently swayed up and down. Never hit the float or the strut. On landing it stayed out of the water until I was just about stopped. The angle it was hanging at I have little doubt it would have gone through the tail. So be sure to keep that extra rope tied on.

We carried 2 Lunds strapped to both sides of the -2's for years and never any elevator problems.

I know an older Turbo Beaver pilot, now retired from the Ontario MNR who had a boat come off the side of a Turbo Beaver. It free fell a couple thousand feet and landed right side up in a lake. He landed, strapped it back on and carried on to destination. End of story!

So Philly, was it a good thing Walmart was close so you could go get a new pair of drawers???

The worst I ever had happen with a canoe was one of those POS Colemans that started flexing on me.. Kinda freaky but I landed again and got rid of it..

Good story, Clguy, hilarious.

We don't carry any frieght or pax when there's two canoes on board...makes me happy cause I can only get 1-200ft/min climb rate on a hot day.

Just make sure if you carry two canoes on a Caravan, you carry them both on the same side (left & nested), cause if the exhaust doesn't catch your canoe or boat on fire on the right side, it will probably burn your straps off!

Oh and bye the way, we had a Beaver in here last month that had a canoe fall off in flight. His old-style lower fin had a giant dent in it and when I checked his horizontal stabilizer for looseness, it made nasty oil-canning noises and you could tell he had broken parts inside from the flexing skins! The new pilot seemed a little dum and merely proceeded to spend 45 minutes pumping out his floats, then tried to take off and got stuck in the mud for another 45 minutes! Where do they find these guys?

Flew a 185 with canoes stapped to the side all summer a few years back. I cinched 'em down with two of those big ass ratchet straps, plus the front end rope to the front cleat. I never worried about one ever falling off...the problem was not over ratcheting and cracking the hulls. If you don't have ratchet straps and are stuck with ropes, the key is the cinch rope between the two main ropes...