Its a pitty, but yet I dont have changed to floats, and wonder if its possible to have some fun and hydroplanning on the lake with my wheelskis! In the past Piper did some experiment with skis on water.

I know for a fact that the wheelskis will work just fine if the water is frozen...

Gump

I was DUMB enough to try that once!!!!!!!!
As close to flipping over so damn quick, DON'T try it!!!
The drag of the skis is really high on the water!!!!!!
Scared The SHIT OUTA ME!!!!!
On floats you are solid to the float
on ski's they pivot, and when you touch down on the water your airplane will pivot right to the end of the cables!!! Really I don't even know how I got out of it but I did!! Damn its good to be lucky some times instead of depending on skill!!
Just my humbled opinion
GT

I was kinda wondering about the flex in the bungies and letting the ski tips rotate down into the water.

Probably best to have someone hold your beer before you try this.

Gump

GumpAir wrote:I was kinda wondering about the flex in the bungies and letting the ski tips rotate down into the water.

Probably best to have someone hold your beer before you try this.

Gump

The ride from ice to a long stretch of open water to ice again on straight skis was a non event, except I was holding my breath for the whole time and probably turned blue. I fell through the ice into open water near Nome with wheel skis, if the ice formation underneath hadn't angled up to get me out of the deeper water, the wheel skis wouldn't climb on top, too much drag, to much junk hanging off.

Now your thinking of doing this on purpose????

No word from Stinsoner yet??? I wonder if he went out on the lake or river today??

Thankfully I take my wheel skis off in the spring so I won't be tempted to try it, though at first glance it seem a piece of cake, I'll take the word of others that it is not so good!

I do know, from experience, that the skis work great on frozen grass, at least on landing. My first flat land ski landing I ran out of snow, and as I neared the transition to the grassy area I thought it may get interesting, nahhh, just a bit faster slow down.

Maybe Stinsoner got the idea for "water-skiing" from watching those snowmobile competitions where they see if they can scoot across a patch of open water. Don't know that I'd try that on purpose either.

Greg does it a bunch in Big Rocks Long Props Alaskan Adventure. A lot of it are transisitions though.

I've got a picture of a Birddog waterskiing on open water with wheelskis. I've wanted to try it but never been crazy enuf to risk it with mine.

On a snowmobile it's nothin!! A patch of open water? Here's a video of me & 2 friend about a month ago on a flowage. I'm the 2nd one on the 700RMK. My friends are on a stock F-5 cat & a 800 mod SkiDoo. You will notice that Cats don't like water!!

PA-11 on water skis. This is the idea, from the book Pipeer Cubs by Peter M. Bowers. He wrote: "Alaskan pilots long ago perfected a technique for landning ski-equipped airplnanes on smooth water and then mainning enough forward speed to keep the plane from sinkning until it could be run up on a beach or mud flat. Takeoff can also be made from a running start on mud or from shallow water parallel to a beach. To provide adequate planing area, the skis must be fairly wide, not the narrow metal models that are practically ice skates. The tail does not come down during these water operations, so ail wheels can be left on, he wrote.
All-American Engineering Co. of Wilmington, Delaware, developed a special st of combined ski-wheels and water skis and tested it on a PA-11, as You can se on the attached photo.
Well, havent seen much of these experiment since then, anyone else?

L-19 wrote:I've got a picture of a Birddog waterskiing on open water with wheelskis. I've wanted to try it but never been crazy enuf to risk it with mine.

On a snowmobile it's nothin!! A patch of open water? Here's a video of me & 2 friend about a month ago on a flowage. I'm the 2nd one on the 700RMK. My friends are on a stock F-5 cat & a 800 mod SkiDoo. You will notice that Cats don't like water!!

It's not the Cat, it's the rider and the driving style. Once that belt gets wet (whether while riding Arctic Cats, ski-don'ts, or the other brands) the game is over...Same goes for airplanes, to some degree.

I'll keep it in mind when I put the skis back on, though by then all the open water will be froze up. I think the Datum Air skis, with the way the wheel is totally on top the ski and not hanging down, would water ski great.

It would be a great way to wash the mud off them!

stinsoner wrote:

PA-11 on water skis. This is the idea, from the book Pipeer Cubs by Peter M. Bowers. He wrote: "Alaskan pilots long ago perfected a technique for landning ski-equipped airplnanes on smooth water and then mainning enough forward speed to keep the plane from sinkning until it could be run up on a beach or mud flat. Takeoff can also be made from a running start on mud or from shallow water parallel to a beach. To provide adequate planing area, the skis must be fairly wide, not the narrow metal models that are practically ice skates. The tail does not come down during these water operations, so ail wheels can be left on, he wrote.
All-American Engineering Co. of Wilmington, Delaware, developed a special st of combined ski-wheels and water skis and tested it on a PA-11, as You can se on the attached photo.
Well, havent seen much of these experiment since then, anyone else?

Well.....give it a try and let us know how it works. Just don't get hurt!!!

L-19 seriously needs a sea doo!

A photo of an otter on Hydro Skis.
http://flythebush.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html
GJ

I read once about some of the earliest pilots to fly in south east Alaska didn't have any airfields to operate from,used to go back and forth from the low tide mud flats to the snow up higher to haul to the miners. Isn't that where Mudhole Smith got his name? Come in and touch down in the water with straight skis then stop in the mud. The opposite going out.

Bob Reeve used skis on the mud flats here in Valdez to supply the mines up on the glaciers in the 30's. I have a great picture of him standing by the plane with his pants rolled up with a 5 gallon bucket of water to put in front of the skis to help it get going. He put the tail up on a barrel to keep it out of the high tide. Read the book Glacier Pilot if you get a chance it has the stories in it. Reeve gave "Mudhole" Smith the nick name but it wasn't tide flats related.