Originally Posted by
Big Pistons Forever
I would answer your question in 2 parts
1) What was shown on the video had nothing to do with practicing watersking to assist landings as the pilot obviously added a whole bunch of power to maintain the waterski, or in other words "practiced" a skill that would never be used in an actual landing.
2) The youtube videos of guys touching down in the water short of a gravel bar all seem to be about the Yee Haw. None of the ones I have seen show a landing that had a purpose, other than to show off.
I suppose that there may be the odd situation where the only practical way to get on to the gravel bar is to touch a bit short, but I would argue that in almost all those cases simply going down the river a bit will find you a better gravel bar to use.
The bottom line on this is simple. Buddy in the video wants to practice short landings, why not use the runway that is right beside him
Finally when you screw up show boating, you don't just hurt yourself, you hurt everyone who flies a light aeroplane, by providing more ammunition to those who want to grounds us all
1) Whilst I agree about the video just being someone having fun, many of the comments about the principle in general are not related to the video at all. I still believe it has a place in flying
2) Youtube videos tend to be a self selecting sample. The people who are often doing this practice because they need to tend not to be spending the time videoing themselves and putting it on the internet to show others.
I have a property that I would like to be able to fly into. The only way to safely land would be to use a water assisted landing technique. I've not done it yet as I don't have the necessary skill or site prepared suitably.