For some reason my wife has decided she wants to do a simulated ditching course or practice session. I dont know if this is in response to some sudden lack or confidence in the family pilot, or perhaps in the plane, or maybe Dan’s terrific talk at La Cerdayna has inspired her for an across the pond trip.
Anyway, can anyone recommend a place in Europe where we can practice a simulated ditching and clambering into the raft etc. Doesnt matter where it is, tho warmer water would be appreciated.
Andark in Swanwick do this still I think: Andark – Aviation Underwater Escape Training
Doing it in cold water is part of the whole exercise.
@Buckerfan, the idea of the presentation was not to motivate your wife 
When I was preparing the Tour, I booked my self for a sea survival course, run thru AOPA Germany… course which got canceled as the big hype appeared… so no survival course for me, but as I’m quite at ease in the water, several years of sailing, windsurfing, surfing, and sea kayaking, I decided to go without the course.
It seems the Sea Survival course runs again, with the next one scheduled November 22nd in 26931 Elsfleth, NW of Bremen, Germany.
Looks like they run the course in either German or English.
Great suggestions guys! Many thanks.
Dan. I didnt know you were a surfer. How does a Swiss guy get into that. That was my thing growing up in Australia, and since then I have taken the family on various surf holidays in Biarritz, Mexico and the Maldives.
Have you noticed that there is a new Wave Pool in Sion. We see it every time on the downwind leg into runway 25 LSGS, and our son has done a couple of sessions there.
The next fly-out should contain an element of surfing!
Another option for ref.
https://ses-safety.com/survival-training-school/
I was a surfer, but above all a windsurfer Buckerfan… I was
For the close to 7 years I lived in the UK, and spent quite some time windsurfing the Queen Mother Reservoir (Berks), and the South coast (Poole, north Devon).
Hawai, the eastern coast of Australia, Canaries, etc, during our vacations, but all of this happened a long time ago…
Later I was flying (as an engineer) to the Maldives about once a month in the winter times, and hold an SSI open water scuba diving certificate, but again, have practically stopped diving nowadays.
PS
Talking wave pool, there’s another one in Zurich, and some guys even surf the river Limmat in Baden, close to Birrfeld LSZF, albeit on wave and a half 
Picking up on the thread drift, I think there is a surf spot (not pool, but a river) in Munich as well: https://www.munich.travel/en/pois/sports-leisure/eisbachwelle
Not sure there are any sane sub-2-ton GA airports convenient to Munich though.
During my time in the RAF, I was fortunate enough to undergo both sea survival training and “dunker” training and I would say without fear of contradiction that, when it comes to sea survival, you can read as many books and watch as many videos as you like, but it’s no substitute for the real thing. Inflating the lifejacket was simple enough, but then retrieving and getting into the life raft was a definite challenge. My dry suit made the cold water bearable – for a limited amount of time – but despite expelling as much air as possible during the donning process, I still felt like being “Michelin Man” when it came to manoeuvring in the water. There’s also a definite technique to getting into the life raft that felt somewhat akin to the struggles of a beaching walrus, and there is no way that I would have discovered how to do it successfully and quickly without experiencing it for real. Similarly, being strapped into a mock aircraft/helicopter structure and then being turned upside down in a water tank was frankly scary. I’m not a strong swimmer and even the presence of Navy safety divers didn’t ease my fear much. But once again, boy am I glad that I did it. I can now completely understand why folk in the past have survived the ditching but then perished through lack of preparation or survival training. So, if anyone is considering whether it’s worth the time, money and effort, I would most definitely say YES, YES, and YES. Fortunately, I’ve never had to put my training to a real life test, but I’ve read too many accident reports of ditchings that have made me wonder whether the occupants had thought through the consequences of post-crash sea survival. On the flipside, there are also instances of ditching where good preparation undoubtedly saved lives. This accident report from BEA on the ditching (at sunset !) of a DA40 when returning to the French mainland from Corsica in 2021 also makes very interesting reading:
https://bea.aero/en/investigation-reports/notified-events/detail/accident-to-the-diamond-da40-registered-f-hrpm-on-05-03-2021-en-route/
