Ballsy waterskiing display
 

This dude was showing serious cojones out on the Islands today

https://1drv.ms/v/s!AsUqLYgbkd8en21WuU2U4cyLh72T

Nothing "Ballsy" about that, just a demonstration of really poor PIC decision making.

Perhaps that pilot might consider my lifejacket thread, among other decision making considerations......

Just a bit of fun. His choice. His risk to accept. Move along now.

Well put (assuming the pilot owned the aircraft...)

Which Islands, PB? Scots accent in the video, but an N reg aircraft in the foreground.

Isle of Mull

Webcam from the Hotel............ Glenforsa hotel Live Webcam

Virtually impossible in a nosewheel aircraft due to the dynamics involved, but within limits doable in a taildragger. There's even a demo team that does this regularly in formation, in Harvards.

And when it goes wrong, what about the people who will take risks trying to rescue him? Swimming down into the water to get him out? The SAR helicopter and its crew, perhaps the lifeboat and its crew? The emergency services whose time will be expended? The hospital bed he'll occupy if he's lucky, and the person who can't be in that bed because he's occupying it? The police officers who'll deliver the news if he's not lucky? The investigators who'll have to try to write up this idiocy without upsetting his relatives? The Procurator Fiscal and Sherriff and others in the coronial process (perhaps)? The cost to society generated by all the above and the premature death of a financially successful person? The effect on his family and loved ones of his premature departure?

Flyingmac, you couldn't be more wrong. You simply couldn't.

No. Flyingmac is right, absolutely so. Humans did not progress by refusing risk. Accepting risk complete with its attendant problems, as you so properly pointed out, is a necessary and relevant part of life.


Darwin's survival of the fittest plays its part.

Have you spoken to any people in the situations I mention? Perhaps you'd like to explain your point of view to them. I have, much more often than I would have preferred to.

There is considered, reasonable, risk-taking. We all understand that.

And there is idiocy: behaviour so likely to kill or injure, and to cause others to take unreasonable risk themselves, and cause them misery, and hurt the public purse, that it is quite beyond the bounds of reasonableness.

I'm an ex serviceman who, during his service was well used to sanctioning risk for others as well as for myself. I'd rather you didn't tell me that beyond a certain point military risk is different to civilian risk. Neither is under duress. Both fulfil a need for the person to test him or herself.


If we do not constantly push the boundaries, we lose the ability to measure and assess risk and consequently and understandably become more likely to become an unwelcome statistic.

There is a very divergent view of what is and is not acceptable risk.

Waterskiing aircraft is in some places comparatively common. If you do not know that, or the aircraft and pilot's capabilities your view of risk may not be accurate - equally neither may theirs.

However the world full of cotton wool version, where no one is ever hurt and no one ever does anything that someone else might think 'risky' is so dull there is little point of being part of it.

I have a pal who used to help out with a voluntary mountain rescue outfit in the Lake District. I once asked him what he thought about folk who go fell walking in flip-flops and a T-shirt then get lost when the battery in the GPS fails and the weather closes in. His response was "Great, it's all good practice" which wasn't what I expected, so perhaps if the Cub had had a problem the rescue services mightn't have been too miffed.

Actually, VG, I never had any fun dragging a body from the water. Don't know anybody who ever enjoyed knocking on a door and telling Mrs Smith that she was now the widow Smith.

all the same arguments used to get motorcyclists to wear a helmet.

would you wear a helmet whilst flying?

There are many ways to push your personal boundaries in ways that build skill and confidence, and where the gain in skill is commensurate with the risk. I am struggling to see how water skiing your aeroplane makes you a better pilot.....

I don't think that anyone wrote that it did. The debate is about risk acceptance and management of risk.

I believe that we had this discussion / argument before, regarding the "Ullswater Incident" http://www.pprune.org/private-flying...ot-guilty.html

Not much point in rehashing the same points, I think.

SD

OK

Then , is this the same pilot/aircraft that landed on a road in Scotland , not so long ago ?

I ask because that was a yellow cub as well

Possible character trait being displaced ?

Rgds

Damned Scottish yellow cub drivers giving us Scottish yellow Maule drivers a bad name!

Attachment 2835

Blimey :zzz:

You could apply much of the above argument to reasons for not going hillwalking, mountain biking, motorcycling, practically anything other than sitting in your house pntificating on PPRuNe.

Armchair critics......
 

Oh FFS. Do you criticise aerobatic pilots for doing dangerous cunning stunts? Do you criticise horse riders for taking part in the most dangerous of sports? Do you criticise cyclists for cycling on main roads with busy traffic?

Yes, there is perceived risk in pretty much anything these days, but just because you wouldn't do it, doesn't mean it is not safe, and no reason for you to character assassinate anyone else who does. You have no idea of the skill level or experience of the pilot, or of what they are trying to,achieve.

BTW it is common practice in bush flying for washing sand off the tyres.

Riskiest place in the world is in your own house - or pulling your trousers on in the morning (5 dead doing that last year)

Dangerous to one is normal to another ..... and v.v.

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:rolleyes:

I think you're suffering from tailwheel envy.;)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0fByofsZvo

What's the attrition rate of aircraft doing water-skiing?
I have not seen any accident reports .... but I have not specifically looked.

My club lost a newly refurbished Robin (tricycle uc) in an "alleged" attempt to water-ski on the river Derwent. The pilot told the aaib that he had an engine failure . Mobile phone footage of the incident was accidently deleted .........

The pilot gained his Darwin award a few months later with a CFIT (unfortunately taking a female passenger with him).

If you have a good understanding of the fluid dynamics it allows you to plane below stall speed and if landing on a gravel bar or bank allows a more controlled contact point at a lower speed. This skill is very useful for some pilots.

I think that is what the judge in the Ullswater prosecution case decided too, finding our friend Mr. J. not guilty and awarding costs. Not that I would have the intestinal fortitude to try it even with a big set of Alaskans and no audience.

Here’s the well-known Kiwi Tiger Moth and Hunter pilot, Dave Phillips, having fun:

Lots of YouTube and other videos of Waterskiing..... I'd be interested to know the number of times it goes all wrong..... Not much official evidence ? So is it that risky ? Would have thought the internet would be full of mishaps and accidents but cannot find any except that idiot in the Robin

Was there a fatal waterskiing accident at an airshow in China, involving a notorious US pilot, with an innocent young Chinese interpreter passenger? A few years ago, reported on ANN, Avweb, or both

Notorious would be an understatement and the Lancair 320 used was not exactly a suitable water skiing plane.

Think that was the same guy that buzzed the tourists on Santa Monica pier.

Yep.

From what i see of the water ski operations (never done it me-self :)) there appear to be two types: Display operations done by the tiger moths, warbirds, etc. And task ops to/from gravel bars and beachs done by the big wheel STOL aircraft.

Display ops look to be mainly done at flight speed, i.e. the aircraft wings are still flying whilst the skiing is being done. Whilst task ops will generally see the aircraft slow to below wing flying speed (unless water current speed determines otherwise) and the aircraft is being supported on the water by the aqua-planning tyres.

Display ops can be 'flown' entirely at one speed whilst task ops are done at two different and site determined 'speeds'.

There are many other factors to consider so how do you train for water ski operations ?






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I'm struggling to see how flying 50miles straight and level at 2000ft for a bacon butty makes me a better pilot.
The fact that this act was successful proves he is a better pilot than I am.
Being capable of flying accurately is surely a good thing?

Down the Nile, in Sudan, in a Piper Pawnee was fun until the local croc decided to surface at just the wrong time & place. It kept you sharp and earned a cold one at the end of a long day. Young man's play time.

Better [does not equal] luckier

'Luckier' or 'better' [includes subset of] those making better decisions

Flying well is a choice. On that run to the bacon butty you can choose to fly well or not. Flying well means a takeoff that stays on centerline with a smooth lift off, a climb at a constant pitch attitude giving you the correct climb speed, cruise altitude kept plus/minus 50 feet, making all you plog times, planning a descent so that only one power reduction is needed to join the circuit, landing smoothly on centerline and at the intended touch down point, along with a whole host of little things that collectively makes the flight go smoothly and safely.

However you have to be adult enough to take the internalized satisfaction of knowing you have flown as well as you can. I know this can be difficult for people who need the ego boost from a "look at me, I am such a Sky God" stunts like watersking an aircraft.

No it means he got away with demonstrating poor pilot decision making


Want to learn to fly accurately ? Take an aerobatics course. Flying an accurate smooth linked set of aerobatics takes way more skill than watersking.

I don't think I've ever achieved the perfection you describe. So I'd have to agree that precise flight is a high skill endeavour. But then yer go and shoot yer-self in the foot...

I had a look at the thread starter post video and as I alluded to in my previous post it looks to be a training flight. If you turn the volume up it sounds like there is a slight power reduction as the aircraft approaches the gravel bar though the pilot powers up and goes round. I'd suggest if the gravel bar wern't the target and the 'spectacle' were the task then the pilot would have done the manoeuvre to track clear of the gravel bar:

https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%...%21123&o=OneUp


"...aerobatics takes way more skill than watersking..."

Big Pistons Forever, how do you know that. Are you commenting from practical experience ?






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