Jacko wrote:
And thanks also to my Counsel, Stephen Spence, whose well-informed and careful cross-questioning of a CAA witness resulted in the trial being halted after less than two hours of its scheduled three days.
How did he do that? Just curious.
USFlyer wrote:
A generalization which is not factual
Sure it is…
Most certainly not. Where I live, the only places I am reasonable sure to survive are lakes and fjords. The preferable method is to land at the shorelines, or as close as possible on the water side. Lots of places there are other options that are better, but as a generalization it is nonsense. You land where you are most likely to survive, and a flat surface is always better than rocks, houses, trees etc.
LeSving wrote:
Most certainly not. Where I live, the only places I am reasonable sure to survive are lakes and fjords. The preferable method is to land at the shorelines, or as close as possible on the water side. Lots of places there are other options that are better, but as a generalization it is nonsense. You land where you are most likely to survive, and a flat surface is always better than rocks, houses, trees etc.
I agree 100%. As for USFlyer, he seems to have left us. Just as well.
Jacko I had hoped to visit Carcassone but a family milestone has intervened.
I am hoping to fly to the Cub meeting in June, and hopefully visit some of the mountain strips in the Tyrol Alto Adige area.
Within easy gliding distance of land 
Just need to pull a Frane Selak if things go South… ;)
huv wrote:
Within easy gliding distance of land
I would be interested to see a SkyDemon or ForeFlight gliding ring ?
They look funny over Pyrenees & Alps but yours huv takes that to the next level
I just carried out my first cross channel flight as part of a group of pilots from my flying club. The suggested route included a leg from the CLN VOR in the UK to KOK, Belgium. Roughly 70nm over the North Sea. I wasn’t happy spending that much time flying over open water, so chose to route instead following the coast via Dover and KONAN. My fellow pilots didn’t understand / agree. Was I being overly cautious? What do others think about minimising over water time vs travelling the shortest distance?
It is certainly good airmanship to avoid being out of glide when that is possible to do. Any season. At the very least to put everybody on board at ease. As you say, often, some slight change in routing (adding very few miles only) will keep you within glide for much longer.
Open water is binary. Everything is perfectly fine, until the moment it’s not and then nothing is fine – it’s an absolute major emergency.
Not many light aircraft ditch each year, but some do. As a percentage, very little GA time is spent out of gliding distance of land, so the low numbers shouldn’t be of too much comfort!
It come down to “do you feel lucky?”.
Personally I’ve little choice, living on an island. But I never feel comfortable while outside of gliding distance of land. Often you can significantly shorten the time over water for just a few minutes extra flight time. I’d take that 100% of the time, but some people are happy with the risk.
All you can do is make your own decisions. You’ll live (and potentially die) by them, so don’t let someone else push you into doing something that you aren’t comfortable with (goes for everything to do with flying, not just open water). It’s your choice, your life, your risk and your money. Only you can choice the right balance.
