LAKEPORT — The California SeaRay comes in a kit, has a 31-foot wingspan and, when empty, weighs about 900 pounds.
The tiny SeaRay is about as far as you can get from the size of seagoing aircraft that cut a wake on Clear Lake a half-century ago. But, along with a variety of mostly restored sleek seaplanes and floatplanes in Lakeport during the past weekend for the 27th annual Clear Lake Splash-In, it was a reminder of the lake”s colorful past.
Only someone familiar with the history of the region would have knowledge about the day the largest seaplane in the world made an emergency landing on the lake. The day was Oct. 27, 1944, and the plane, the Mars, had a wingspan that was 10 feet short of being the width of a football field 200 feet. At capacity it could carry 308 people.
The Lake County Bee of that era reported that the plane carried military officers and enlisted men back from the war zone of World War II. Among them was Navy commander Chester W. Nimitz Jr., son of the admiral who was at that time in charge of U.S. Naval forces in the Pacific. The young Nimitz, the day”s edition said, was a guest of Lake County aviation pioneer T.W. “Pop” Lampson.
One final note on the Mars. It crash-landed in the Pacific Ocean while in its post-WWII role of flying to and from Hawaii, and, although the crew escaped, sank to the bottom. And there, at a fathom unknown, it sat for more than a half-century before finally being found by salvage divers.
It was not the lake”s only experience with big seaplanes.
“When clippers came over from Hawaii before the days of instrument landing, Clear Lake was the primary designated alternate landing place if San Francisco Bay was fogged in,” said Chuck Kines, organizer of the Splash-In.
Now, with the single exception of the Splash-In, seaplanes are rarely seen on the lake. So, county residents responded with curiosity and interest to the 30 or so planes that were on display at Natural High School. The SeaRay drew a lot of the interest. Tom Binsfeld, a dealer for the Orlando, Fla. company that sells them, says that about 50 per year are built and about 400 of them presently flying.
Many are planes that began life as land craft but are now sport floats made by three different companies. Many, if not most of the fuselages of the planes are a half-century old, like the 1947 Beaver that Kurt Henning of Fallon, Nev. rebuilt by himself.
“I started in May of 2000 and it”s kind of a funny story,” Henning said. “Although I had been a pilot for about 30 years, I had never built an airplane in my life. A friend of mine, who is a mechanic, said, Let”s build this airplane together.” So, I ordered the kit out of Perkinsfield, Ont. Canada, but by the time it came, my buddy who had all the knowledge had up and left. So, I started on it and finished it about two months ago after six years.”
So, is Henning angry he had to do it himself?
“Heck no,” he said. “You know I loved every minute of it. I”m going to be in withdrawal. I”ve got to build another one.”
It was a show jointly sponsored by the city of Lakeport, the county and the Lakeport school district, all neatly tied together by Lakeport Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Melissa Fulton.
There were celebrities present, both in terms of planes and people. A Skylark from 1945 of the type that flew civil air and submarine patrols during WWII was one of the more intriguing aircraft. “One guy claims that he sank a submarine with one of these,” says Kines, pointing to a plane that appeared singularly mild and unsuited to that purpose.
Among the seaplane pilots was Richard Bach, author of the “bestseller” Jonathon Livingston Seagull of a few years back.
Like the bird in his book, the man simply loves to fly.
Contact John Lindblom at jlwordsmith@mchsi.com.
