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Answer :
Hi Alissa,
 There are many airplanes made to land on water. In the early days of airliners, because there were no runways long enough for really big airplanes, large seaplanes were built to cross the ocean. The Boeing 314 and Martin Clipper are two of these neat airplanes called "flying boats." They never had wheels, and always flew off the water. There have been smaller flying boats built too.
This is a picture of the Sikorsky S-39 is an amphibious flying boat first built in 1931. It can land on the water on its boat-like hull, and then land at an airport by extending its wheels. In this picture the wheels are down for landing on a runway. When landing on the water, the wheels tuck up next to the hull, near the windows where the pilots are sitting.
Today, there are different types of airplanes that can land on water:
Float planes, which are usually airplanes first built to land on a runway, have the wheels replaced with a pair of large pontoons. The pontoons look like a pair of long canoes with a top on them. Lots of planes like these fly in Alaska and in Canada, where there are lots of lakes. They're fun to fly!
 This Cessna Airmaster floatplane is an amphibian, because there are retractable wheels mounted on both pontoons. This Airmaster was built back in the 1930s, and a careful restoration made it better than new.
Amphibious airplanes have wheels that can be retracted so they can fly off the water, or the wheels extended so the airplane can land on a runway. It's the best of both worlds. You can take off from an airport, and then land in a lake and go swimming or fishing. Then you can go to your house on the lake or go back to the airport and land on the runway! Sometimes amphibious airplanes look like flying boats with wheels added, and others are float planes with wheels added to the bottom of the floats. They're fun to fly too!
Best Regards,
H.G. Frautschy
Executive Director, Vintage Aircraft Association
Editor, Vintage Airplane
This little floatplane is called the Heath Parasol. The small floats are carefully made of strong wood. Only the pilot can fly the Heath, and you can see he's having a lot of fun!
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