Canadian redneck engineering -- it worked!

Watched that, or one very similar, before. Airspeed over the wings is airspeed creating lift ...but I wouldn't want to be the pilot.
 
I figured they would have taken a running start and waited as late as possible for max airspeed. Surprised how slowly they were going for it to create sufficient lift. Must have been running a minimal fuel load to get to a nearby wet port.
 
Love seeing stuff you have never seen before.
 
I figured they would have taken a running start and waited as late as possible for max airspeed. Surprised how slowly they were going for it to create sufficient lift. Must have been running a minimal fuel load to get to a nearby wet port.

Note the strap on the left pontoon as they start off. They've got the plane strapped down, a cross wind could blow it off the trailer as they head to the runway.
Also just a second before it flies off the flaps extend and off it goes into the wild blue yonder....
 
Wow, glad that worked but pretty dangerous...

Reminded me of a place where I worked in the mid 1980s. A Vice President liked model airplanes and figured out how to get the company to pay for his hobby - he convinced them that a model airplane could carry a spy camera for military use (our company was a military contractor). Note this was back way before drones. The Israelis had just made the news for working on this type of project. So they hired three aeronautical engineers (fresh out of school), a couple electrical engineers (I was one), and even a "professional model airplane flyer". Back then the camera and telemetry electronics were bulky and heavy, so the plane guys were having trouble building a plane that could carry them. Taking off was difficult. So the pro flyer got the idea to mount a sheet of plywood on top of his pickup truck, and try to take off from that as somebody drove the truck down the runway... on the first try (at 80 mph) the plane took off but then immediately dipped down in front of the truck - and got run over and squashed.

That was the end of the program. They'd spent almost three years and a lot of money and only had several smashed planes to show for it (and some video that was almost unwatchable) along with a couple lost planes (careened into the river beside the airport)... the VP retired and the next day everybody was laid off. (I was lucky to have gotten myself reassigned to another project before that happened.) That video was kind-of cool - pretty shaky and ends suddenly with a very quick view of the ground rapidly approaching...
 
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