Judging by some of the responses here, perhaps I am also considered to be reckless.
By my responses, I would be considered somewhat reckless in this regard. I've never said that I have not waterskiied a plane, I would just be very uneasy doing it without a very compelling reason - I just could not explain it to the owner of the plane if something went wrong. For the two planes I own, the owner I would be attempting to explain to would have suddenly become the insurance company. I would never be lent the planes I am, nor insured if people thought I was doing this with planes without a stellar reason.
One winter dusk, a not yet a pilot friend called me in a panic, asking if I had heard that we would be getting 90 to 110km winds over night and the next day. Yes, I had, and my plane was safely away. He told me that three other friend's planes were not, all just sitting on the ice of the frozen lake. The local area of the lake was irregularly flooded in 6" of water (which is why the planes had been left for a while, to wait that out). For the next 5 hours, I taught myself to waterski 180/185's - at night, to get them off the ice, and off a local airport for tiedown. Very reckless of me, I know, but the winds did come, and the planes
would have been wrecked, left where they had been. This to me was a risk vs benefit, which was justified - it was not fun, it was scary. The owners all thanked me...
I think a few of the them also went out and did the same with him at a later date knowing that I had come back to tell the tale.
On the razor's edge of things going really badly - Lucky it was a 152, as earlier 150's have a nosewheel which sticks further down. It's a sad commentary on pilots, that some cannot simply appreciate the freedom to fly within limitations and good judgement, for its own pleasure, and instead have to go doing really dumb things in planes
