If you are already a certified single-engine land pilot, you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting your Single Engine Sea add-on rating. It will generally require less than a dozen hours of training and a checkride with an FAA examiner (USA).

Some of the things you will learn in the training for your SES add-on include:

• how to handle an airplane on the water
  
• how to read the environment for wind speed and direction information
  
• how to verify the suitability of a landing area
  
• how to secure the airplane at a beach, ramp, dock, or mooring buoy

The first time you taxi a seaplane may be a different experience for you. No longer do you have any brakes to bring you to a stop – a seaplane is always in motion on the water. Just like when taxiing on land, great care must be exercised while taxiing on water. Perhaps even more so as the pilot must keep a constant lookout for boats, floating debris, half and fully submerged logs and other potentially hidden and dangerous obstacles. The seaplane pilot will also become familiar with how the characteristics of the plane change while taxiing at different speeds.

While seaplanes basically handle the same while airborne as their land-based counterparts, there are of course, some major differences during takeoffs and landings. During their SES training, the seaplane pilot will learn, for example, that calm, “glassy” water inhibits depth perception during landing and adds significant drag during takeoff. They will learn that rough water pummels the plane and passengers, prompting expedited liftoffs and prompt deceleration on landing.

Flying a seaplane is the easy part. Docking, ramping, and mooring is where a seaplane pilot proves his or her ability. Precise control of the seaplane on the water, accounting for the effects of wind, current, obstacles, and momentum, leads to a respectable finale to the flight. Failure to exercise such vigilance may result in a very expensive mishap.

While wind can be a hindrance and a seaplane pilot’s worst enemy, it can more often be helpful to the trained pilot. The wind can shorten a takeoff or landing, assist in docking or beaching, or act as a brake when motion is not desired. Part of the SES training will teach one how to read the environment to take advantage of the wind conditions which is so critical for the seaplane pilot.

* Much of the above was rewritten from SPA literature, Wikipedia, and other sources.