Just picked up the ‘Floatiak’ and I’m trying to fly it out of CYHC. I have ORBX’s CYVR which includes a proper model for CYHC with docks that you can spawn at cold and dark. So far, so good.
After learning all about the changes to the Kodiak so that I don’t blow up the engine, I managed to get it started and use the freeze-position Simconnect events bound via Spad.neXt to hold myself by the dock until I’m ready. This also works OK. However, when I unfreeze myself and apply full beta to reverse away from the dock (I know that beta in the updated Kodiak reflects the real aircraft better now, so you need full beta to get actual reverse), the aircraft leaps forward and does not reverse. Water rudders seemingly don’t work at all by the dock (yes, I had them down… not making that mistake again). Basically it’s back to floating about at the mercy of the current. Even with full power applied in high-idle, I barely move.
Here’s the odd thing - once I get far enough away from the dock, the water rudders begin to work and I pick up some speed. At this point, beta will stop and reverse the aircraft as expected. I’m figuring it’s some weirdness with the terrain by the docks being seen as somehow ‘not water’ by whatever it is that makes the water rudders work now. I’ll try this operation at another seaplane port with actual docks (I’ve downloaded a few from flightsim.to) when I have time.
OK, so I taxi out towards the runway itself, get myself in position, water rudders up, into high idle, condition lever firewalled, and full throttle… the engine spins up somewhat but the torque doesn’t get past about 1/3 of the dial and I never pick up any substantial speed. After an hour of faffing about with startup procedures etc, this was the final insult. I gave up.
If I spawn on the water runway, everything works straight away, of course. But where’s the fun in that?
What on earth am I doing wrong here? No offence to SimWorks Studios but the product manual doesn’t tell you much at all about how to operate the aircraft. I guess I should find the POH.
Anyone seen anything similar? Any ideas? Honestly, I’m close to giving up on floatplanes in this game. They’ve been terrible since launch and they aren’t getting much better.
Moved to Community Support-Aviation, Navigation, Communication
Lately, I fly float planes almost exclusively in southern Alaska. (I highly recommend Return to Misty Moorings for that.)
I have seen this once with the Kodiak. Starting C&D in Juneau Harbor. Drifted close to shore, but when free and once in deeper water, could not get past maybe 30 kias and so could not take off. Something got into a weird state and there was no fixing it. I recently started using a pushback tool for holding float planes in one position. I think that may have been the issue - it really never let go.
I fly the Beaver mostly. It has an anchor feature which is useful. I’ll try the Kodiak again with and without the pushback tool. It’s probably a conflict of some sort.
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Did some testing on this and it’s definitely something wrong with the Amphibian version. Cold and Dark just doesn’t work whether starting in the water or on land. It never gets enough torque to develop any speed. If I switch to the wheeled version at the same airport, same conditions, it’s just fine. Have to find out the best way to report this to SWS (probably Discord).
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Thanks for testing. I was about to fire up the sim and try again; I will still do that but I’ll probably go Kodiak wheeled since I’m trying to learn how to fly it ‘properly’ (not a RW pilot so I’ll never quite get there ) and C&D is kind of a necessity for me.
Will you report it at the SWS Discord? I’m on there so I can chime in.
Yes. Trying to straighten out my Discord account. I think I started several times with different email addresses and I get caught in a perpetual claim/verification loop. I usually just abandon it, but will try again to straighten it out. Definitely a bug.
I’ve dropped a post in their community-support area.
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Saw your post on their Discord and their quick response - it’s a feature! Just for the amphibian, so it seems. I found the recommended portion in the manual and, sure enough, it works. Problem solved! Thanks Neil!
6.12 PITCH LATCH PROPELLER
The Series III Amphibian Kodiak comes with a pitch latch propeller as standard
equipment. When latched the pitch latch propeller produces no thrust, which is a
great advantage when in the water as the plane will not be pushed forward. Propeller latching happens before you shut down the engine. To latch the
propeller:
- put the power lever into beta
- move the conditioning lever to cut-off. This will lock the propeller into a flat pitch angle.
WARNING:
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PUT THE PROPELLER INTO BETA WHEN FEATHERED
When the engine is restarted you will notice that the propeller RPM will increase
much faster as the propeller is at a very fine angle and has no resistance from the
air around it. This means that you will have control of engine power much more
quickly from such a start. To unlatch the propeller:
- put the power lever on idle
- Feather the propeller to release the locks
- Unfeather the propeller
Your propeller will now move into idle pitch and you can resume normal
operation
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Interesting. I wasn’t aware of that feature. Not sure it explains all my issues but it seems to be the cause of the power problem. Will give this solution a go.
I have to say, I think SWS is one of the most helpful and responsive vendors I’ve dealt with in this space. I shall be buying the PC-12 when it arrives for sure.
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That works for me too. All good now.
As a last resort always RTFM. This is sure to help many others. Thanks for posting the snippet here.
Thanks for these helpful informations and solution!!
I found it when I was completely desperate as I didn’t manage to move the Kodiak 100 Amphibian on the ground at all when starting from cold and dark! No power, no idea how I could move that plane. Your answers showed me that it’s no bug but I am just to stupid to handle the plane correctly… 
Today I found the following video and it solved all my problems!
just start up as shown in Jonathan Beckett’s video and you get full power available - with Stick-Calibration (switch reverse thrust) I am now also independent from pushback service… 
I thought it might help other people like me, so I post this link:
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