John Hartz’s Super Skywagon in flight.
Time spent with pilot John Hartz quickly reveals his preference for flying off the water and for doing it in Maine, a state with a heritage of seaplane flying.
Hartz lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, outside Portland, and flies his 1979 Cessna 185 Skywagon on PK amphibious floats much of the year.
“Geographically Maine is as large as the rest of New England combined,” Hartz said. “There are millions of acres in Maine that are accessible by the public and the state has over 6,000 lakes and ponds. And the Maine North Woods is larger than Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks combined.”
John Hartz’s Super Skywagon on a lake in Maine.
According to Hartz, seaplane flying is natural for him with a background that includes extensive experience in the marine industry and a love of sailing.
“My grandfather was a test pilot for the Navy,” he said. “In high school I wanted to get my license but my family opposed the idea. But when I went to Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, I got my license.”
He graduated in 2012 with a degree in physics and economics, then bought a 51-foot sailboat with friends and sailed around the world.
“The seaplane rating was a kind of natural marriage of boating and seaplanes and I got my rating after being on the sailboat for a couple of years,” he said, adding he earned his seaplane rating at Twitchell’s seaplane base in Turner, Maine.
John’s Super Skywagon.
“After sailing,” he noted, “my buddy and I were interested in getting a plane together. We ended up buying an experimental Super Cub. I was in Boston working for an energy company at the time, but I moved to Maine, still with an energy company, and refound my passion for flying.”
“I went from flying 10 hours a year to 100 hours a year,” he continued. “The Super Cub was in the backyard. I competed on the short takeoff and landing circuit and was pretty successful at that. Eventually I ended up finding a pair of experimental floats and that opened my eyes. I had already been landing on gravel bars, but by putting floats on the plane it opened up the state of Maine. And in the winter I put on skis.”
Hartz said marriage to his wife Scout and the arrival of their first child, daughter Pippa, caused him to look for a larger aircraft.
With the help of PK Floats, he became the owner of a formerly Canadian-registered 185. Skywagon expert Keith Strange and the PK Floats staff rebuilt the plane into a Super Skywagon. His aircraft, N409PK, is mounted on PK 3050A amphibious floats.
John Hartz with his wife, Scout, and their daughter Pippa.
Hartz sold the Super Cub to get the 185.
“If I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d probably go out and buy a Kodiak,” he said. “That would be my ultimate dream plane, if money were no object, but it is an object. In my mind that is the best performing and most utilitarian plane that can land on floats.”
To date he has about 1,200 hours in his logbook with more than 400 hours of seaplane experience.
The panel in John Hartz’s Super Skywagon.
Advice For Aspiring Seaplane Pilots
According to Hartz, the real difference with floatplane flying is the mentality.
“You have a special awareness,” he said. “It has a lot of similarities to backcountry flying. You are pretty much landing into the wind, but you have to look for obstacles, rocks, kayakers, moose. Every landing has its own discrete process.”
John Hartz flies a Super Skywagon, but says a Kodiak is his dream plane.
“Once you are on the water, it’s a whole other ball game,” he continued. “You are a boat. You sort of have a lack of control. When you come up against the shore there are a lot of variables with that.”
“If the sight picture on a seaplane landing is not right, you do a go-around,” Hartz said.
John’s Super Skywagon in flight.
“In the backcountry on wheels you may have only one way in and one way out. And in seaplane flying you can definitely get into a place and not be able to get out,” he continued. “My personal minimum is probably a one-mile-long stretch of water. That has a lot of margins in it. I measure some of my takeoffs and they are probably under 1,500 feet or even 1,000 feet off the water. But there are so many variables. Useful load, temperature, and the condition of the water have to be considered. The worst thing for takeoff performance is glassy water. A very smooth water surface is very sticky in grasping floats when taking off.”
Hartz likened dry land touchdowns on amphibious floats “to landing a shopping cart.”
John Hartz says landing an amphibious airplane on land is like landing a shopping cart.
The increased popularity of amphibious floats is directly correlated to the diminishing number of fuel stops for aircraft on straight floats, according to the veteran seaplane pilot.
“Gone are the days when there were lots of outfitters who had fuel for straight float flying,” he said. “Now you are packing your fuel in.”
Hartz’ longest cross-countries have the same destination.
“My wife has a summer place in Georgia on Cumberland Island and we have flown the Cub and the 185 there from Maine,” he said.
The 1,000-mile plus journey is from Biddeford Municipal Airport (B19) to Cumberland’s private High Point Airport (GA46).
Most of the cross-country flights in the Super Skywagon are to Scout’s summer place in Georgia. (All Photos courtesy John Hartz)
When he’s not flying, Hartz is involved in real estate sales. He also has developed a line of aviation-related products, including a canoe-style T-handle Paddle Pump that combines a float pump and a paddle for amphibious operations. He markets other aviation-related products, including portable fuel bags and aviation pilot helmets at SkyCowboysSupplyCo.com.