light planes collide over Seattle?

Agreed. A full stall landing isn't a good idea on floats, because it means
you come down on the tail of the floats -- and this could mean pitching
sharply forward and possibly going up and over. Instead, you want to settle
at minimum sink rate on the step, regardless of whether it's water, grass,
snow, plowed field or pavement, and come to as gradual a stop as possible
using the keels as your brakes. Which is exactly what happened in this
case. Bravo.

Seth


"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"Flyingmonk" wrote in message
oups.com...
Maybe the floats were damaged, but remained in corrrect
position/alignment until the weight was applied on touchdown and it
gave way?

The report I saw said that the floatplane pilot noted the floats at an
angle before touchdown.

As far as the "hung it on a prop and 'three-pointed' it" goes...witness
accounts say that the floatplane bounced several times before coming to a
rest. It sounds to me like a classic example of the pilot continuing to
fly the airplane until it came to a stop, no matter what happened. This
is, of course, the text-book example of what one SHOULD do when landing,
in an emergency or otherwise.

I think it likely that the successful landing had less to do with a
particular choice of technique, and more to do with a pilot who kept his
wits about him and maintained control of the airplane as best he could,
even in an extremely difficult situation.

Pete