A lifetime of seaplane flying

Seaplane pilot Gary Halverson of Spicewood, Texas, traces his love of aviation to the first flights with his father at least six decades earlier.

“My dad Mike was a 10,000-hour seaplane bush pilot in Houma, Louisiana, and I grew up in the plane flying beside him,” Halverson recalled. “It has been so long I can’t remember the first flight, but I guess you’d say my learning was through osmosis.”

Mike Halverson owned Turn Key Aviation at Houma-Terrebonne Airport (KHUM), about 40 miles southwest of New Orleans. Turn Key specialized in seaplane service for the oil industry.

“We were a flying family in my dad’s work and also in our off time on a typical weekend,” Halverson said. “My dad and my brothers and I would get in the Cessna 185 and he would have a spot picked out for us, a remote place to land. Sometimes we would fish right off of an oil well platform.”

“In Houma, beginning in the 1950s and well into the 1970s, there was a tremendous amount of seaplane activity,” he continued. “There were a lot of barge rigs drilling in the inland waters, the rivers, bays, bayous, and the brackish water of the Mississippi Delta. There were literally a couple of hundred seaplanes operated by companies in our area. They were flown by commercial seaplane pilots — and my dad was one of them. His full name was Howard Edward Halverson, but everyone called him Mike. He was well-known in our area flying corporate and ran a Part 135 operation.” 

Halverson earned his pilot certificate in 1974 and “has been flying ever since.”

“I learned the seaplane business from mowing the grass and washing airplanes and fueling them up, assisting mechanics, and scheduling charters, all the jobs,” he said. “At 18, in 1975, I was operations manager running the place for my dad. And as operations manager I dealt with every aspect of the business, 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is the type of business that demands you be there for your customers.” 

“As a seaplane pilot you learn quickly that your approach to preplanning and landing and docking are critical,” he continued. “One of the big hazards is something submerged in the water like logs. You have to clear the area and deal with the weather. These days I’m a recreational seaplane pilot. I typically fly in good conditions. But when you’re flying seven days a week where it’s your job, you are pushing things to the limit. I have experienced night landings in a float plane without any lights. That’s when you have to know right where you are.” 

“The most common serious accident landing an amphibian is landing with the gear down on water,” he added. “This remains the biggest risk for amphibious seaplane operations today.”

He said the seaplane business slowly changed for the worse in the 1970s.

“Helicopters came into play as platforms moved further offshore,” he said. “And with that our relevance shrunk. My dad’s business closed in 1976. Until then, I always thought I would have a career in aviation, but it ended so quickly. I was offered a corporate job to fly float planes professionally. Instead, I worked in the oil fields, including offshore rigs, and afterwards went to college where I studied business and eventually had a long career in the oil industry. I spent 10 years overseas with my family living in Indonesia and Singapore working in the Middle East, so I had to push the flying aside.”

He got back into flying when he repatriated to the U.S. in 2001.

“I bought a Grumman AA-5B,” he said. “Then I bought a Champ and contracted a rebuild of a Stearman at that time. It eventually was an award-winning Stearman. I also built a Glasair Sportsman and had that experience.”

He has also owned a Beechcraft G-36 and a Meridian Turboprop.

Gary currently flies out of Spicewood, Texas, and has two aircraft, an Aviat Husky on tundra tires and a Cessna 185 on amphibious floats. His Skywagon, N185GH, was featured in a recent story, “The Super Skywagon.”

To date he has about 1,500 hours in his logbook with more than 250 hours of seaplane experience.

Halverson, now 65, calls himself a bush pilot, although his Skywagon is fully equipped for IFR operations. His passengers are usually his wife Pamela and their eight-year-old Standard Poodle Sadee.

None of his four children has an interest in flying, he said, but his granddaughter, 19-year-old Mattie Reynolds, appears headed for a flying career.

“She wants to be a commercial pilot and I am mentoring her,” he said. “She is a college volleyball scholarship athlete, but has a passion for flying and just seems to have the right aptitude. She is very smart and disciplined, so I think the career will suit her well.”

Halverson said a recent cross-country flight in the Skywagon amphib was a favorite. He flew 450 miles from Spicewood to Houma on Feb. 1, 2024, to celebrate the 90th birthday of his mother Wanda. 

The family 185, currently hangared at Spicewood Airport (88R), will soon spend a lot more time on the water, according to Halverson.

“We have a seaplane dock under construction at Inks Lake, one of the seven high country lakes in central Texas,” he noted. “We have a home there and we’ll put the plane out there and move it back to the hangar as necessary.”

Tips To Get Into Seaplane Flying

Halverson recommends that pilots interested in seaplane flying look toward recreational and light sport aircraft as the place to start.

“The Cub models like the Legend Cub and Cub clones are a good starting aircraft for learning seaplane flying,” he said. “If you live in a place like Florida or Minnesota, Maine or Alaska, you have more lakes. In Florida you can fly year-round. In some of those areas you can even operate on straight floats. The easiest way to go is with light sport on amphibious floats. You can start there and not break the bank.”

Starting with a “light simple machine,” such as a straight float Piper Cub or Cessna 172, allows you to concentrate on the nuances of float flying and not the complexities of a more high-performance airplane, he said, adding, “there are significant differences in hull type seaplanes versus pontoons or float designs. Concentrate on what you intend to fly.”

The two most difficult challenges are docking and glassy water operations, according to the veteran seaplane pilot.

“You can obtain a float rating over a long weekend, but you will not come away confident in your docking skills,” he said. “That comes with time and experience.”

“The most consistent method to landing any airplane well is establishing a stabilized approach,” he continued. “This is critical to glassy water landings just above stall with a decent rate as low as 100 to 200 feet a minute. You are landing with little to no outside visual reference.”

Regarding amphibious operations, it is all about staying upright, he added.

“Check your gear position at least three times — downwind, base, and final,” he recommended. “Most aircraft are set up with four amber lights for land and four blue lights for water operations. It is a clever idea to install mirrors, as well, to verify your gear position. Get this wrong and your landing will end with a violent upside down hanging from your seat belt.” 

Straight float airplanes are lighter and have slightly better takeoff, climb, and payload capability, he said. Amphibious airplanes give you much greater utility year-round in most environments.

None of this is too difficult for a good stick and rudder pilot, he added.

“I encourage you to stop putting off that seaplane rating. I guarantee it will put a smile on your face on that first landing — it never gets old!”