The Thurston Teal is a family of two- and four-seat all-aluminium amphibious aircraft designed by David Thurston in the United States and first flown in 1968. A total of 38 Teals were manufactured. The Teal design features a high wing with tip floats for lateral stability. The horizontally opposed engine is mounted tractor fashion in a strut-supported pylon above the wing root. The T-tail includes a water rudder and tailwheel that swings up against the bottom of the rudder. Conventional undercarriage includes flat, spring-steel main undercarriage legs that rotate aft for water landings. The aircraft was designed to be very rugged and simple, with manually operated flaps and landing gear. The conventional (taildragger) configuration was chosen to make beaching the aircraft more practical, with no nosewheel to be damaged when running up on shore. The aircraft may be left floating with the mainwheels extended, to act as fenders to the bottom. Pilot and passenger sit side by side under a clear perspex canopy. Side windows slide up into opening overhead windows. One unusual characteristic of the Teal design is that it cruises slightly faster with the landing gear in the down position than with it up. The Teal's wheels do not retract, but instead swing to the rear until the gear is horizontal and clear of the water. The drag produced having the landing gear stowed in the up position is higher than in the extended position, and this reduces cruise speed. David B. Thurston established Thurston Aircraft Corporation at Sandford, Maine, in 1966 to produce a lightweight amphibian of his own design, which had the designation Thurston TSC-1A Teal. First flown in 1968, production began after certification was gained in August 1969; the 16th and subsequent aircraft, which introduced some refinements, were designated TSC-1A1 Teal. In 1972 David Thurston joined the Schweizer Aircraft Corporation, which continued to build the Teal in the form of the TSC-1A2 Teal II before selling the production rights to the Teal Aircraft Corporation of Markham, Ontario, in early 1976. This last company built a developed TSC-1A3 Marlin before running out of financial steam in early 1979. Before the Schweizer acquisition, Thurston had designed, in conjunction with an aviation magazine, a landplane version designated TSC-2 Explorer, and Marvin Patchen Inc., which financed this development, acquired the production rights for this aircraft, planning to build civil and law-enforcement versions as the Explorer and Observer respectively. Subsequently, Dr Maitland Reed's National Dynamics (Pty) Ltd of Durban, South Africa, acquired this project from Patchen, but later decided not to build either version of this aircraft. Thurston Aircraft produced a total of 19, Schweizer built 12 and Teal Aircraft constructed seven. For details of the 12 variants, click here.
