Morph,
You got it backwards. Water gets harder the faster you go, because it's not compressable. If you hit the water fast, it can't get out of the way adn it doesn't compress so it's worse than hitting a brick wall. At least bricks can crumble, but water doesn't move fast enough when you whack it hard. You ever see what happens to powerboat guys when their boat disentegrates at 200mph? They just go skipping across the water like a flat stone. They only dig in when a limb directly stabs the surface or when they slow down.
It's no different than guys who do barefoot waterskiing, and I've also seen many movies of alaskan bush pilots who do that sort of thing all the time on rivers. They land on the river and just need to make sure the water isn't much deeper than about 6-8 inches when they get below hydroplaning speed.
The stuff between the wheels and water is just water spray, no diff from what your car kicks up on a really wet road, and what the planes are doing is pretty much the same as what happens when a car hydroplanes. As a matter of fact, the lower they have the air pressure in the tires, the lower speed they'll hydroplane at. Hydroplaning speed is directly related to tire pressure. The higher the tire pressure, the faster you have to go before you hydroplane. Their smokers are under the fuselage.
