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In all of its appearances, the Skimmer is simply a Dodo (based on the Cessna 152) with a pair of large pontoons on the bottom in place of landing gears; the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas rendition further includes reinforcement on the connection between the pontoons and fuselage, as well as harnesses between the pontoons and fuselage and the tailfin. While the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories renditions have a two-bladed propeller, the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas redition comes with a four-bladed propeller.
While able to land on water, the Skimmer in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City does not feature any functional doors, resulting in the player getting warped inside the plane when entered. If the player exits the plane, however, they are immediately spawned on top of the plane's wing. This problem was rectified in GTA San Andreas, when the plane's door can be opened, and the player can enter and exit through the doors, a feature only possible with Carl Johnson's ability to swim, which Tommy Vercetti does not have. Similarly, in GTA Vice City Stories, if the player enters the Skimmer, they will be warped.
Unlike the Dodo, the Skimmer in GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas may come in a variety of two-tone body colors (as opposed to the same red-and-white color scheme of the Dodo). The Skimmer in GTA Vice City Stories simply comes with an all-grey body color.
Aside from its beneficial amphibious nature, the Skimmer's performance in the air is very much similar to the Dodo in that they both have the same sluggish acceleration and poor top speed, owing to a low-power engine. However, the Skimmer has a tendency of stalling easier. In GTA Vice City, the Skimmer can reach high speed by moving the plane up and down in an undulating motion, but this takes a while to achieve and is not necessarily useful given the relatively small size of Vice City. This makes the plane only suitable for steady, slow air travel. In San Andreas, the Skimmer uses a four-bladed propeller instead of the two-bladed version that the Dodo has. This means the engine may have higher performance, but is offset by the increased weight of the Skimmer's pontoons.
The name "Skimmer" comes from a family of tropical birds with the same name. Similarly, the term "skimming" can refer to dragging something quickly across the surface of water.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City & Vice City Stories
If a Skimmer is flown into a Pay 'n' Spray, nothing will happen, probably because it is a "boat" modified to fly, unlike a Helicopter which will be resprayed and also come out with generic wheels.
Since the plane has no functional doors, if the player enters one while with a wanted level, the cops won't be able to open the door and bust the player on the inside. The cops will simply run against the Skimmer's pontoons without doing anything else.
If the player tries to enter a blown-up Skimmer in both games, they are instantly killed. This is done by standing on top of the Skimmer and pressing the enter button. The protagonist collapses to the ground and the usual wasted screen sequence is shown.
In GTA Vice City's game files, the Skimmer is defined as a boat instead of a plane, possibly because of its ability to float on water. This was also the case with GTA III's Dodo, where it was defined as a car. In San Andreas, however, it is defined as a plane.
According to the in-game files in GTA Vice City, the Skimmer's main colors are 1 & 3 (White and Red), the same colors as the Dodo.
The name of the Skimmer in GTA Vice City's files is "SEAPLANE" instead of Skimmer, this is most likely the planes beta name.
In GTA Vice City, the Skimmer can actually fly backwards by diving the plane completely and pitch it at 90 degrees and then press the brake button, the plane should fly backwards now.
If the Skimmer is spawned via a cheat (can be achieved by replacing its default.id number with a vehicle spawnable by cheat, i.e. Romero's Hearse) it will not crash the game, unlike with other boats. Instead, the Skimmer will be spawned in front of the player with no propeller, no wing or tail flaps, and if the player gets on its pontoon and tries to enter it, an invisible door will be opened and the game will crash.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
The Skimmer plays the radio CSR 103.9 when entered (unlike most aircraft in the game, which play K-DST instead).
The Skimmer is the only airplane in the whole game that won't explode if it collides head-on with any solid object. This could be because of its pontoons, which have a solid area that may take up space past the front end of the airplane.
The propellers of the Skimmer suffer from a visual glitch. When they are not rotating, they look exactly like the propellers of a Dodo. However, when they start to rotate and pick up speed, they appear wider and with a more rigid, triangular shape, just like the Skimmer from GTA Vice City. This is because the Skimmer's texture files have been handed down from GTA Vice City. This visual glitch is only found on the PS2 version.
If the player lands the Skimmer upside down in the water, the airplane will sink a few feet, then turn right-side up very quickly, and slowly float to the surface, where it will be driveable again.
If the player is flying on the water, and then tilts the plane so that only one pontoon is touching the water, mist will still be ejected from both pontoons, even from the one that isn't touching the water.
The Skimmer may run very slowly on the water resulting in inability to take off. This problem appears frequently if the player is using modern hardware. The easiest way to solve it is to turn on the frame limiter in the settings of the game.
Grand Theft Auto V
A Beta Seaplane in GTA V, possibly a Skimmer.
A seaplane was seen in a trailer of Grand Theft Auto V, which implies that a seaplane, possibly named Skimmer, was planned to appear in the game, although it did not make it to the final version. In the Xbox One/PS4/PC edition of the game, a seaplane now named the Dodo appears.
