Rans S7 Comparison
FWIW this is my experience with the Rans S7 (short and long tails) and S7s (these are all long). I've bought and sold a dozen of them. Most started out on wheels but I added floats. I moved to the S7 from a very snappy homebuilt C 170 with a fabric steel tube fuselage (one of a kind homebuilt with 180hp on 2425s). It was a great performer but my first S7 with a 65hp 582 got off the water with two 180 lb guys a lot quicker and it handled like a real plane.
One 80hp short tail I had was on 1100 Aerocet air operated amphib retracts. It had been built with 4x 9 gal tanks instead of 2. It easily got off with me and a 220lb passenger on a hot day with no wind (that was the buyers criteria and he was happy). All the short tails I owned were 80hp and weighed empty on wheels in the 675 lb range. They have been on 1260 Lotus, 1500 Murphy, the 1100 Aerocets, 1350 Aeroflotteur and 1400 PG (the absolute heaviest set: about the same weight 225lb as Edo 1400) and this one got off slowly with me, the 230lb owner and 1/2 fuel also with 80hp.
One 80 hp performed fine on Lotus 1260 but when an external amphib kit added it was a dog until the owner upgraded to 95.
All the 100hp models are terrific performers on both straight and amphibs. I helped a friend fly his newly purchased S model on Zenair amphibs with all our baggage, spare parts and two spare gas cans strapped to the float struts cause they wouldn't fit in the hatches from Nova Scotia to Saskatchewan and performance was a non issue.
I learned to fly floats on Cubs, Pa-11, PA-12 and 14 many years ago. The S7S is a modern Cub replacement that has toe brakes, effective flaps, better vis, more room, bigger, deeper seaplane doors on both sides that do make it a lot easier to get in and out of for both pilot and passenger (this stated by a cub owner!). The 912 is a modern engine that is light, economical, goes to TBO without repairs and uses no oil.
The only thing you can fault the S7 for is the lack of the name "CUB"