Helicopters / Seaplanes on Yachts

There's some weight info on Page 1 of this thread.

it's quite a diffrence!! 5,291lb for a medium sized chopper and almost twice the weight for an empty VTOL!!

Just saw a very fun looking seaplane on a travel show, the call it a Float Trike, I don't know if thats it's real name, but it's basicly an ultralight with floats.

They have a web site, but it's under constuction.
http://www.float-trikes.com.au

Obviously not a cargo plane, but looks like a hell of a lot of fun.

The VTOL's are very interesting, only if you have a shadow boat... You need the width,storage and load-carrying capabilities. Also on the shadow-boat you wouldn't need to worry so much with the support-strength and any impact that might have on youryacht-layout ...

To save on beam you would have to land 90' on the long-axis of the Yacht That means that the shadow boat would need strong bow:stern thrusters to keep the yacht 90' against any winds so the VTOL could approach cleanly against the wind.

Very few yachts (octopus, O'Mega, Grand-Blue and a few others) might have enough beam for these aircrafts to approach, land and take-off safely on a not-so-stable platform (any yacht is always rolling...)

Rudimentary this would be something like
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The AgustaWestland BA609 has a beam of 10m (~30ft) excl the props.
(And if the wing isn't folding, the props surely could be built that way!!)

Most of the yachts carrying a helicopter is minimum 30ft on the beam!!

If the VTOL hasn't the capability to move sideways (witch I think it has) You only have to keep the yacht in line with the wind (this is common when landing chopper in little more than calm wind to!!)

The only negative with the VTOL's is the weight/price??

Point taken...

Only, for safe touchdown and take-off you'd like both rotors to be covered by a level deck below it. (was mentioned in another thread regarding helicopters somewhere on this forum)...

Hence you end up with a minimum beam requirement of 60ft for the BA609. Give some space to "manoueuvre" for the pilot and you're talking 65-70ft. That's a lot and the yachts with this beam are very limited I'd say.

GReetz,

S.

Flying tender

Perfect flying tender
Folding wings for easy docking
www.centaurseaplane.com

Amazing

The Centaur is really great , combines WIG effect and new hull design, about time someone did this.

And to topit all off it is designed with CATIA too.

The Centaur option looks pretty good. Keep in mind... you can't set it down in rough water, well... maybe you could, but it might leave the reproductive capabilities of your significant other in a somewhat questionable state.

Other things to consider... loading and unloading next to the ship could get dicey in certain conditions. In addition, unless the wings are swept back into the TomCat position, passengers might be doing backstroke to get onboard the ship. Also, the ship will need to be stationary to "pluck it" out of the water, unlike a heli that can approach a ship underway (the civilian version of a carrier landing?)

I guess I'm hardcore heli head. Flying is fine, but hovering is devine.

Seaplane docking

Ok, rough water could be a problem

Picture shows a nice way to park the plane, a floating dock behind of yacht.
There could be a "hangar" in aft so it easiely be winched indoor.

With a seaplane you could make expeditions to unexploided paradise bays
were helis maybe not have space enough to land.

More advances to seaplane vs helis:

Less price!
Less service costs!
Less pilot labours!

Offcorse a heli would be nice but a yacht with a seaplane is something uncommon

After some thought ,the only real choice is a chopper, twin turbine of some sort.. On something 140' those large vtol would be a problem. And from your description of using it to supply and also transport you from off shore a sea plane ,especially those single engines ones don't have hardly any usable load with full fuel. Singles with full fuel might have a usefull load of 300 to 500 pounds.Thats only a pilot and passanger and a couple cases of wine and only do 150 to 200 knots at best.

I see alot of those sikorsky s-76's flying corperate guys, they fly fast at about 175 mph for 450 miles. One quick refuel and you have a 900 mile range.Most small corperate jets only fly that far all though a little faster.I don't know what the usefull load is but they have quite a bit of power. I did my pilot training in a aerospatial tb-9 and thos S-76 used to blow my doors off those tb-9's did 120mph red lined

Yup. The Sikorsky S-76C++ is awesome.
It's a favorite of many VIPs and celebs.
Since you started off with an Aerospatiale, there's the AS365N3 Dauphin (eurocopterusa.com).
Or AgustaWestland's Grand (agustawestland.com).
Or Bell Helicopter's 430 (bellhelicopter.com).
Or any one of the above manufacturers' other models.
Good Luck!

Tb9 is a fixed wing, thats why it was embarrrasing that was back 93. I got about a hours worth of instruction in a eurocopter bk117 but thats the limit of my experience in a chopper. It was a medical bird,a freind used to be cheif pilot in our area for rocky mountian helicoptor,they rent a lot of birds to hospitals. They only hire high time pilots, most have military experience. If you can afford to pay for 2000 hours in turbine,You don't need a job.