twflyer wrote:Mauleguy,
I may be mistaken, but I think it was in Vol. 2 that you said you would not hydroplane tires that were smaller an 31's. Can you elaborate as to why not.
Also, can you tell me the hydroplaning GPS ground speed for 35's ad 31's in Bushwacker and your previous M5? It would be informative if I could get some numbers to bracket in a bit of a range on various tire sizes. Certainly there are variables, but gathering some data might be useful.
Thanks
I try to stay away from a specific number for MPH ground speed when I answer the question, "what speed can I safely ski on water". Here is my reason, if you play around with the technique enough you will start to see what is safe and what it not. I can tell you that in my own personal experience the 35" Bushwheel felt a lot different hydroplaning then the 31", I did not like the feel of the 35" at first, it felt like there was more drag when I touched down on the water and in my first week of playing with the bigger 35" I thought I liked the 31" better for hydroplaning. I continued to experiment with them and after a while they started to feel as natural to me as a 31" Bushwheel on water, I have not used a 31" on water since that time so I am guessing It would be like the 35", I would have to re-learn how I used them safely. I would hate to give you advice on speed and have you end up up-side down in a lake or river somewhere because it did not work out... There are a lot of variables while hydroplaning, the best advice I can give is approach with caution, it is the quickest way to wreck a good airplane as an old friend once said to me. He should know because out of all the people that have used this technique he would be in my book the least likely to end upside down and guess what he did the summer before last, so if it can happen to him it can happen to anyone.
I played around in the water with the Sherpa just a little off shore with the bigger airplane and bigger tires, I thought it would hydroplane at about the same speed as a smaller airplane on 31" tires, I was wrong.
If you are going to try it out, start with a river that has some nice long gravel bars with nice transitions, where the water does not get to deep right away. I would always land upriver in the beginning because the flow of the river adds to the overall ground speed number, lets say you are landing up river at 35mph on the gps and the river is flowing at 4mph you actually have 39 mph over the water which for me is plenty to keep from penetrating on 35's, it's actually too fast to be very useful but it gives you the idea of what I am talking about. I can tell by feel when I am getting to slow and then I add some power but if you are new to it you may not realize the difference until it is to late with smaller tires I just don't know.
Greg
was out flying and went to dip his wheels in the water of a beautiful calm glassy little lake. The ones you dream about shredding up on a summer morning behind a boat. He was descending down at a brisk rate to intercept the water when he hit pretty dam hard. Scared the crap out of that guy. He Learned a couple good lessons that day. Large Glassy water is really hard on your depth perception. And 2. It would take ALOT to put one in. A 180 anyways. Water went everyone. Shot back up like crazy. He was wondering how he would of explained the emegerncy landing had the plane sucked in water and died after he cleaned his pants and was thankful he didn't go from 60 to 0 and upside down in a split second. Some things you learn the hard way, survive and get wiser. Hopefully this will be a short cut to someone. 
