Buoyant Landing skids?

[Joely-Bird]

Do buoyant landing skids exist, or has anyone tried to make them? I've been thinking of improvising some from empty drinks bottles or cans for emergency water landings if I'm flying over or near water. It's for a 450 quad so not a lot of weight to support.

Does anyone know of a buoyancy calculator to work out how much air volume I'd need per 100g of MR?

 

[J.T.]

Hi, I use plumbers pipe lagging on mine. Really light and cheap.

 

[Joely-Bird]

Excellent idea, thanks! how much of it do you use to make it float? have you had any successful water landings? have any pics?

 

[J.T.]

To be honest I used it as a just as precaution when over water, luckily didn't put it to the test On one machine I have it on the arms and landing skids and am sure this would be enough buoyancy. There is a pic in my gallery of a old set of landing gear with some pipe on.

 

[ClydeBuilt]

Wouldnt there be a problem here as soon as it landed?

All the weights well above the surface making it seriously top-heavy and should make it flip over kinda quick?

 

[sixshooterstang]

the pool floaties work for my tricopter. it weighs about as much as a 450 quad would.

 

[ClydeBuilt]

Just shows yu dunnit?

I did RC Subs and any weight above the waterline could make a boat roll like hell...

 

[Joely-Bird]

Hopefully with the weight well distributed & a wide enough set of floats, I would think that it'll be pretty stable. Sea planes manage it just fine, surely there's some similarity here?

 

[ClydeBuilt]

Widely spaced floats sounds a plus, their floats are pretty long too....another must.