Finally one single website to avoid airborne traffic while having a guarantee to find a boat after ditching, it comes handy for crossing the channel in freezing IMC in winter with a basic service !
https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1377562071546613762
PS1: joking obviously as it’s 1st April
PS2: Marine traffic does work, here is one boat found right where he was plotted on MT just under the wing, took a while to find himafter my cloud-break from FL100 to FL040, funny it has not moved much since we departed
I had other failed attempts to spot boats before, so I don’t think it’s operationally very useful…
Interesting. I also wondered about this and was looking at installing Marine Traffic for a trip across the North Sea that I am planning on doing.
Just out of curiosity, for those who have experience crossing the Manche Channel, how many ships are typically in view at one given time? Is one typically always within gliding range of at least one vessel?
Considering that channel is one of the busiest shipping routes in the world, it should be fairly easy to glide to a ship unless one breaks out of cloud at 1000 ft?
Do ships monitor 121.5?
The merge between FR24 & MT24 into one website FRMT48 is an April 1st joke 
There are load of boats crossing English channel in both SE-NW and NE-SW axis, I don’t recall a single day crossing where I can’t spot one, the same for crossing Med near Gib & Tangier, but toward the North SeaI doubt much commercial maritime mouvement that appears on MT but some helicopter & fishing boats are surely around?
Ships monitor 156.525 MHz, I had a cheap handheld for 60£ that can TX/RX on both aviation & maritime bands, I doubt boats onboard radios monitor 121.5, most equipment is not capable, at least no one in a whole sailing class did know about 121.5
Don’t forget that it can take up to 5 miles to stop a large ship.
Ibra wrote:
Ships monitor 156.525 MHz, I had a cheap handheld for 60£ that can TX/RX on both aviation & maritime bands,
I think that’s a good point.
One may very well ditch next to a ship but if there’s no communication with them, they may well not notice you and simply sail by…
Is it legal for a PPL with Radio-Telephony to buy a TX/RX maritime band radio? Could you hint to the one you had? 60GBP seems really cheap for something that can also transmit.
Not only does a large ship take a long way to stop but unless it was one of the British/French passenger ferries where the captain has a PR angle to consider, they probably aren’t going to stop for you.
Your best bet is a military vessel or a private pleasure yacht. Crewed by conscientious folk and highly maneuverable.
In the UK, and I suspect most of Europe, you can buy anything*; it is the use of it which may be restricted, and listening on the radio has all sorts of weird restrictions too which everybody obviously ignores
* I think guns are a different category, along with 5kg plutonium spheres and such
Ships are supposed to keep a lookout, 24/7.
I too thought of posting some April Fool’s jokes, and some were suggested (one was that EuroGA was being sold to Skydemon) but I couldn’t think of one which would not potentially cause confusion
Graham wrote:
Not only does a large ship take a long way to stop but unless it was one of the British/French passenger ferries where the captain has a PR angle to consider, they probably aren’t going to stop for you.Your best bet is a military vessel or a private pleasure yacht. Crewed by conscientious folk and highly maneuverable.
In some countries EVERY vessel carrying it’s flag has to rescue a person overboard, and it is a criminal offence if you don’t (like with a real prison term).
Definitely look for the smallest vessel you can reach proximity to. Ensure you pass it and land in front (ish). The sound of the wind/waves/engines will drown out a slashdown if they coincide. Maybe more chance on a sailing vessel in calm wind.
If I was doing more than 12 kts into wind, I rekon you could splash down PA28 and skim to a stop within 20yds behind me and I would never know.
If your only hope is a big vessel, pray they see you and call air sea rescue/coastguard on your behalf.
I would rekon that they will likely call on ch 16 too and on transmitting that a light aircraft is down, most likely any vessel that could help would hear it and respond too.
I.e. we can make 28kts so can do 10nm quite quickly, so would respond if no more likely candidates replied.
Most marine traffic is on a channel pertaining to necessary contact, and monitors channel 16 at the same time.
A cheap marine handheld would be your friend.
Basically almost everything afloat will be monitoring channel 16.
Fishing boats and oil supply vessels would be best. If you see an oil platform there’ll be a nearby rescue boat.
Many fishing boats pick up gear routinely. Unfortunately trawlers have gear down and couldn’t respond as fast.
