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How to Mount Floats on an RC Plane

The addition of a float to your RC plane allows you to experience the fun of water takeoffs and landings. Flying from water gives you a larger area to fly, removing the need to find a large non-wooded piece of land for use. Floats are usually made of balsa wood, fiberglass or molded plastic and placed on your airplane in lieu of landing gear. To be effective though, you have to mount the floats correctly. Any mistake in the process can leave your floats landing sooner than your airplane, resulting in costly damage.

Things You'll Need

Landing gear brackets
Model floats
Epoxy glue
Screws
Screwdriver

Instructions

- 1
  Measure the length of your airplane fuselage. Purchase floats that are between 75 and 80 percent of the length of the fuselage. Purchase floats from hobby shops specializing in RC planes and accessories locally or over the Internet. Obtain floats that are longer in the nose when mounting them to aircraft with long noses or with swept wings to balance the aircraft properly.
- 2
  Remove the landing gear from your plane using a screwdriver. You'll use the landing gear mount holes to install your floats.
- 3
  Attach two landing gear brackets to your fuselage. Locate the brackets so that they are placed one in front of the wing placement, and the second just to the rear of the wing. Secure the brackets beneath the wing using epoxy glue, or by screwing landing gear mounting loops beneath the wing, and slipping the bars on the ends of the gear into place. The mounting loops are flat boards with circular loops attached to them for holding the landing gear bars in place.
- 4
  Mount the landing gear end pieces to the mounts, extending the mount. Center the mounts beneath the fuselage relative to the fuselage length. Attach the floats to the landing gear, gluing them securely in place using the epoxy, or screwing them in place using landing gear mounting loops. Secure the floats using each bracket so that it's attached at two points. Make sure the floats are parallel to the fuselage and to one another. Adjust the height at the rear of the plane by placing shims between the landing gear brackets and floats, if necessary so that the leading edge of the plane's wing has a three-degree positive angle.
- 5
  Allow the epoxy holding the floats in place to dry for 24 hours before using the floats in takeoff and flight operations.

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