The Shearwater’s aerodynamics are very good, but compared with any seaplane, they are excellent.
The total drag is very low greatly enhancing performance.
Both the landing gear and the hydroski are retractable greatly reducing drag.
A very talented and experienced aerodynamics engineer working with modern software has produced new wing sections and fuselage that have very high percentages of laminar flows.
The wingtip is particularly good at minimizing the vortex generated and is markedly better than the older style swept up winglets.
Only the small surface area of a slim aft fuselage is swept by the high speed flow from the pusher propeller, unlike the traditional traction propeller that bathes the entire fuselage with high speed air.
A very low thrust line produces very little nose down pitching moment and therefore negligible induced drag is produced counteracting it.
The engine is positioned very close to the center of the plane. This allows a very good balance to be achieved between thrust, center of gravity, drag line and aerodynamic center.
The result is that the Shearwater has very good stability, a wide center of gravity range, low drag and excellent handling characteristics.
