Story By John Mann

One of the attendees at Saturday’s EAA pancake breakfast at the Guntersville Municipal Airport is now calling Guntersville his home and is already getting a new business off the ground or, in this case, the water. Frank McCutheon Jr. and his wife Sarah Tamar McCutcheon are the owners of Guntersville Seaplanes, which offers training for licensed pilots and soon aerial tours of the lake.

“I’ve been in Guntersville for about two months,” Frank said. “We’re starting a sea plane business here. My wife and I are both instructors and we’ve both been professional sea plane pilots flying from the East River in New York City out to the Hamptons and the in the winter we usually fly Miami to Fort Lauderdale, the Keys and the Bahamas. She still flies a Gulfstream jet for work, two weeks on and two weeks off, so she’ll be here instructing when she’s off and I’ll be here full time.”

Frank and Sarah’s journey to becoming pilots share a lot of similarities. He owned a motorcycle business working with Harley Davidsons and custom bikes which he sold in 2009, starting to fly for fun and eventually getting all of his ratings and becoming an instructor, especially loving flying sea planes. Sarah meanwhile was an ad executive in New York and would see planes landing in the Hudson River in Manhattan, leading her to want to pursue flying as well.

The couple got introduced to Guntersville two years ago while on a flight from Florida to Minnesota. He was in a straight float plane, meaning that he could only land on the water, and stayed at Lake Guntersville for three days.

“We just loved it here,” Frank said. “We thought the lake was beautiful and thought about it just about every day since. We always knew we were going to start a sea plane business at some point and it finally just came together where we could do it. The Guntersville airport has been great it looks like they are doing a lot of work our here and improving things, everyone has been welcoming and extremely friendly and supportive about us coming and starting a business.”

Now that the pair have moved to Guntersville they’ve gotten a hanger at the airport and are already offering instruction for pilots to get their sea plane ratings. They teach a three day course with two days on instruction and a practical test with an FAA examiner, receiving their sea plane rating upon passing.

“We teach them all the maneuvers and what they need to know about landing on water,” Frank said. “Since they are already pilots they know the rules and the regulations and aerodynamics so it’s more of a fun rating where you learn how to handle an aircraft on the water, take off and land, dock and things like that.”

Right now Frank and Sarah have two planes in operation, both straight float Cessna 172s. Frank says that plane in particular is one of the most popular training sea planes in the world. However it’s their third plane that is the most unique of them all, a 1947 RC-3 Republic Seabee.

While the Cessna’s can only land on water the Seabee is capable of both a runway and water landing, and when landing in the water comes down on the belly of the hull with the floats out on the wings. It has a front bow door with the propellor behind the cabin as well as a reverse, meaning it can pull right up to the dock to let passengers board and then back out for takeoff. The planes were built just after WWII as adventure and recreation planes for pilots returning from the war who might want to still pursue flying, with just over a thousand of them being built before the company decided to halt production. The McCutheon’s Seabee didn’t get to see much time in the air since it construction and was sitting in a hanger for most of its life.

“This particular plane only has around three hundred hours total on it,” Frank said. “It was parked in 1956 and was owned by the same person until the early nineties when he decided to sell it. Another guy bought it and restored it and was flying it in 2002 or so but it’s mostly sat around in hangers. We’re going to get it going again, get it reassembled, get the inspections on it and start flying it.”

Frank says that the Seabee, which had to be take apart for its trip to Guntersville, should be back in operation within the next six to twelve months. He says the plane will be more for his and Sarah’s personal use, taking it to fly-ins, events and using it to promote their business.

“It’s such a cool plane,” Frank said. “It’s a unique airplane and different than just about anything you’ll see, a plane like this draws a lot of attention.”

The McCutcheons are hoping that they will be ready to start offering sea plane tours by the end of September, in time for the fall foliage season. You can find out more about Guntersville Seaplanes by visiting their website at flyaseaplane.com or by calling 256-506-8199.