When trying to come up with a site for floatplane heaven, you’d go through a lot of places before you hit upon Texas, but this didn’t stop me from saying “yes” when Cessna’s chief pilot of propeller airplanes, Kirby Ortega, dropped me a note asking if I wanted to go float flying with Cessna’s resident float flying expert, Jeremy Schrag. We’d find water somewhere.
The bird of choice was the Turbo 206 on Wipaire Wipline 3450 amphibious floats, the CAD-designed, laser-drilled beauties that represent the current state of the art in things that float and fly. The Whips boast a number of latest-and-greatest features, and when combined with the Garmin G1000 panel (bearing in mind that most bush pilots — and private lodge commuters — have made a tentative peace with glass cockpits), they provide the kinds of safety warning systems that were previously unavailable.
