The mirrors have been suggested, but when you get them mounted far enough out that they can be seen, most of them....wide angle...are pretty much useless in trying to determine whether the wheel is really all the way down. My over-center indicator won't indicate until the mechanism is over center and the wheel is locked in place. With a mirror system, the wheel shows up so small that it is impossible to tell if it's REALLY all the way down or not. On the Republic Seabee that we have been working on...ahem, Oshkosh Seaplane Grand Champion, 2014, Sport Aviation, Oct.2014, p.82, thank you very much... the mirror for the tailwheel is out on the tip float, and when you try to see if the tailwheel is down, it is SO small as to be useless. He has a light that indicates position, and the mirror is only to verify.
When I came up with the mechanical indicators, it was, in my mind, the easiest solution that was pretty much foolproof, and didn't involve lights, wires, etc.

Now to fixing the Oshkosh damage...

I left Oshkosh two days after getting there...my usuall stay...and flew home
to fix the floats.

After it slid on the belly of the right-side float, there was grinding damage to the keel for about 13" but very little damage to the skin...only about 2" of the skin was ground away. I made an overlapping scarf-type repair to the keel, and overlapped the skin and the step bulkhead with new material.
There was room to reach inside the float to buck rivets, because I had built the floats with pump-out openings in the walkways. I had cut six 3.5" openings into the walkways of each float and installed pumpout cups in the areas of the separate compartments. But I felt more comfortable being able to get both arms inside, so I cut an additional 3.5" x 6" opening into the walkway, and later added a flange and a hinged access cover. Maybe I'll line that compartment with styrofoam and be able to carry ice and beer, eh?

I had taken the floats off the plane to repair the damage, and had the plane flyable the next day after returning fron Osh. Brian called me and I told him I had the floats off and was flying the plane, and he suggested that I come back up to Osh..."you'd probably be the first guy who came in on floats, left and returned to Osh on wheels" I doubted that and opted to not go through the effort...if I had been assured of setting some kind of Guinness Record, I probably would have though.

Anyway, got the damage all fixed, and reinstalled the floats 4 weeks later. It was during this time that I devised the main wheel position indicators, built them and had them in place when the floats went back on. It was also during this time that Brian suggested that the step needed to go further back in relation to the plane. That would have involved making new struts and I was reluctant to just start making new struts, cutting the longer ones down, making new ones, etc., on the notion that this would help the plane off the water. Instead, I decided to build a new set of brackets to allow the plane to move forward...floats back...and these would allow for a movement of 2.75", and if the brackets were flip-flopped, another 2.75" in the same direction. It took almost another 4 weeks of designing and building and installing to get these in place, and in the meantime, I got a few more hours training in the Cub on floats.

While training in the Cub, Brian would have me call out all the moves that I was doing, but as they related to flying the Kitfox. It would go something like: "Kitfox downwind for lake landing....carb heat on...water rudders up...engine speed set...mixture set (Rotec throttle body)...operating gear switch (actually pretending to reach for the switch)...pause...pressure building....pressure maxed out...left float wheels indicate up, right float wheels both up...configured for water landing...."

We would do this time after time, landing on the water, having read the wind direction, and landing accordingly. He would have me do high-speed taxiing, which was ok, but I was not so comfortable doing high-speed turns on the step...it just didn't feel right to me. Also, the Cub tach is a counterclockwise rotation for increasing rpms, and that was WAY different than the digital tach that I ws used to seeing in the 'fox...GRT EIS. The carb heat is located where I couldn't see it, so it was "out of sight, out of mind", as well as the location of the water rudder pull-up handle. All of these little things have a way of frustrating this 78-(79 by the time I get this documented) year-old brain. Along with the little details of flying the Cub dual was the problem of getting the plane into the water and getting ready for a lesson. Brian has a small pond in his backyard which is long enough for the Cub to take off one-up. But because it is a straight-float plane, he has to fly it to a local lake, I drive the car there, wade out, get in, get an hour's worth of work in or so,(about all the stress this old-timer can handle) wade back to the car, while Brian takes the plane home. We then back the tractor and trailer into the water, load the plane aboard, and put the combo into the hangar. Because I don't like to be a burden on others, all this effort to get such short flying time in wears on me....frustrating.

By now, I had the floats moved back the 2.75" and ready for the next lesson. It is amazing how much different it is to get training in ones' own plane, or in any amphib for that matter. I called Brian to meet me at the local turf airport...3NP, Napoleon, MI. He climbs aboard, we lift off the ground...feet are dry, thank you...we make a few landing and takeoffs at a local lake, and he says "It didn't help....move it back to where it was." Thank God I hadn't cut up a bunch of strut material only to have the move negated! In retrospect, whether it was working with strut material or chunks of aluminum, it was a lot of work for naught.

A day later I had the adapter brackets removed, the floats back to where they were originally, and flying again. I still wasn't cleared to land on water, but at least we had determined that the step-to-airplane position was more or less correct. Three days later, I made a decision while flying that would require the removal of the floats and a BUNCH more work than the earlier keel damage...stay tuned.

Lynn