Amphibious plane speeds into town

SANDPOINT — It’s unlikely you’ve ever seen a plane quite like the one Dean Rickerson flew into Sandpoint Monday morning.

With its distinct shape and its tail-mounted engine, the aircraft carries a striking profile in comparison to the more conventional Cessnas and other small airplanes peppered around Sandpoint Airport.

There’s a lot more to the design than an eye-catching appearance: as far as Rickerson knows, the aircraft is also the world’s fastest amphibious airplane. It is capable of cruising at around 240 knots — or 276 miles per hour — holds 110 gallons of fuel for a range of 1,000 miles and can take off from a 1,500 foot-runway when loaded up with cargo and passengers totaling 800 pounds.

According to Rickerson, the aircraft design makes several important decisions to achieve those numbers. The most important factor is the sheer power of the tail-mounted engine, which packs a wallop at 480 horsepower. For comparison, the popular Cessna 172R has a cruise speed of 140 miles per hour and a ranged of 801 miles using a 160 horsepower engine.

“You can make a brick go fast if you have enough horsepower to back it up,” Rickerson said.

All amphibious aircraft make sacrifices in fuel efficiency and speed in exchange for their aquatic abilities. However, Rickerson’s plane mitigates

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this to some degree by avoiding airplane floats, which are particularly cumbersome and unwieldy. The only way to manage this is by putting the engine above the plane.

“Any other way, you have to have floats, which add a lot of drag and a lot of weight,” he said.

By connecting the engine to the plane tail, it also frees up the cockpit canopy to open and close at will. That way, Rickerson can simply land on a body of water, pop open the canopy and spend a few hours fishing if he’s so inclined. The distance between the canopy and the engine propellor is great enough that it can open fully without worrying about the engine.

“You can stand right up and sing the pledge of allegiance if that’s what you want to do,” Rickerson said.

The speedy aircraft is partially designed off a kit that is no longer available for purchase. The company discontinued the model part-way through Rickerson’s efforts to put it together, so he finished up the project using his own discretion.

“We’ve made about 40 major modifications to this airplane,” he said.

The plane is usually stationed at Merrill Field in Anchorage, Alaska. However, Rickerson is currently in Sandpoint to make some improvements on the aircraft with its co-creator, Graham Woodd of Woodd Aviation.

“He’s a superb builder,” Rickerson said. “He’s built at least four of these.”

Appropriate to the plane’s fast and versatile nature, the last digits of its identification number are 007 — James Bond’s code number — and that fact hasn’t gone unnoticed. In fact, when Rickerson returns to Alaska, his aviation buddies will no doubt be quick to remind him.

“Everyone that knows me calls me 007, which they’re really not supposed to do, but they do it anyway,” he said.