mmgreve wrote:
Compare that to the reality of say Sweden or Norway where an off airfield landing is very likely to be in a pine forest or mountainous area where you can be several days walk from the nearest town if you walk the wrong way. I can understand why the Swedes here feel quite comfortable flying over ocean where you can be easily spotted.
Yes, indeed! In about a third of Sweden, you have to carry survival equipment when flying a SEP and the aircraft has to have contrast markings (or an equivalent colouring scheme) of at least 1 square metre total. These regulation were put in place after an accident in the 60/70-es when a SEP crashed in a sparsely populated area. All onboard survived but it took several days for SAR to locate the aircraft and by that time they were all dead from exposure. IIRC, they had even tried to light a fire using aircraft fuel and the engine ignition system!
Of course, the odds are better today with modern ELTs, but still…
As I was yesterday dragging low and slow along the Greek-Turkish FIR line,this thread came into my mind and sadly realised that THIS is now the best place to ditch.Innumerable official Coastguard ships patroling,countless official and unofficial Rescuers seeking refugees,inflattables making their way to the West and of course the allways stealth mafia speedboats zapping East-West.What a world !
@alioth, I have made dozens of intentional fresh water landings with a landplane and agree 100%. Provided that the water is moderately calm there’s nothing to it; it’s MUCH easier than landing on any other surface except perhaps hard sand or packed snow. A dead stick ocean landing might well be a different kettle of fish.
As for forest landings, I’ve only done one, which is hardly sufficient to claim any particular expertise. It wasn’t good for the airframe but I walked away without a bruise or scratch. What did concern me was that when I flew my Zenair over the landing site later the same day, I couldn’t see any sign of it. SAR would have had the same problem, even with a PLB?
That being the case, and knowing that my landplane has reserve buoyancy to float for days or weeks, I’d be happier in a river or lake – if given the choice.
alioth wrote:
Second, let’s start with “water is like hard concrete.” That’s also not true. If it were, I could just set down on it no problem. Water is only “like concrete” if you crash into it, but so is land. An under control ditching on the other hand isn’t crashing, it’s arriving at the water’s surface under control. The aircraft won’t suddenly stop or cartwheel.
Hear Hear.
Water is only “as hard as concrete” if you hit it at a high sink rate – out of control. Hmm, like going near vertical upon contact. I’ve never crashes on water (though I know a few pilot who have), but I’ve landed on it a few thousand times. As long as you maintain control, you would be amazed how much you have to affect the type of landing you want. If I could have only four things functioning perfectly during a water landing in a landplane, they would be: A four point harness, a life jacket/immersion suit (water temperature dependent), underwater egress training, and a flight plan/SAR.
Speaking of drowning, yes, always a risk, training and preparedness are your best defense. A factor in egress is an aircraft which is at least stable in the water, or only slowly changing position while you exit, rather than an upright aircraft being rapidly pulled inverted in the water by a parachute dragging it with the wind. If the fellow ferrying out of Hawaii had had more than just himself on board, I expect that drowning for the occupants would have been a real risk, as the Cirrus was pulled under so quickly. There is no way that ditching was going to end really well, but I believe that the use of the parachute did not improve its survivability.
But, that’s just me, Mr. “I’d rather fly it under control, all the way down to a stop”. To each their own, as long as it’s informed….
If I could have only four things functioning perfectly during a water landing in a landplane, they would be: A four point harness, a life jacket/immersion suit (water temperature dependent), underwater egress training, and a flight plan/SAR.
The fifth thing would be something that directs the rescuers to me. A single person in the water is near-impossible to find from, say 500 feet up. Possible solutions would be a Rescue Streamer™, dye, signal mirror (when sunny), flares (at night), smoke canister and/or PLB w/GPS. Failing that, the most efficient and effective way to make yourself more conspicuous is to thread/kick water hard. This creates a large circle of foam which is pretty easy to see from the air. Waving and shouting does NOT help, BTW.
Peter wrote:
Maybe your CTLS
My CTLS has a parachute…franklly, it’s the ONLY way anyone should be flying over water. My plane will land in the water intact.
Peter wrote:
A flimsy little plane whose controllable Vs is realistically about 80-90kt is not going to be great for any kind of forced landing, land or water. But basically he ran out of fuel.
A Long Eze like the one John Denver flew isn’t the slowest landing plane but it’s not flimsy and is arguably the safest aircraft to fly around at minimum speed, which is 58 knots or so. As with most canards you have to do really nutty things to ‘depart’ from controlled flight at low speed. My father thinks his life was saved by flying a canard aircraft when the engine quit due to an (experimental non-magneto) ignition problem on upwind and he turned back, front wing only gently stalling and unstalling as he banked steeply at minimum speed over a totally built up area. Not a bad setup for a controlled descent to water either, even at 58 knots.
USFlyer wrote:
it’s the ONLY way anyone should be flying over water.
I tend to prefer a second engine….
USFlyer wrote:
My plane will land in the water intact.
So will mine, I’ve done it thousands of times, and reused the plane every time! Indeed, I would think most any airplane can be landed intact in the water, though you might bend it if you contact roughly. Most of the submerged planes we recovered over the years, were rebuilt, and flew again. I did quite a bit of the rebuilding.
USFlyer wrote:
[parachute], it’s the ONLY way anyone should be flying over water.
Are you proposing a regulation? It is silly statements like this which inspire lesser experienced thinkers toward more needless regulation, or other limitation to freedom – which then people come to the internet to complain about! Then I get videos on my Facebook, showing airliner passenger “pods” descending under parachutes, suggesting it’s a good idea! After more than 7000 hours of flying over 41 years, (including some where I was required to wear a parachute) I have never wished that I had one (‘pain in the butt, either literally, or wallet – or both). That is my preference, just as apparently some pilot’s preference is to never leave earth without one. It’s just different type of flying, and we all have to respect each other’s different types of flying.
It is true that there are some types of flying for which an airframe parachute would be useless, and nothing more than expensive ballast. Much of my over water flying would fit that category. You might choose to not do that type of flying, which is fair enough, but others of us choose and enjoy it. If a pilot chooses an airframe parachute, and spends as much flying time as possible in the safe deployment envelope, fair enough, that’s a choice.
Aircraft have been successfully ditched since the beginnings of aviation, and similarly, perfectly set up landings on runways have been turned fatal by an error for every bit as long. Our society has written regulations to provide a minimum safety “net” for flying. These regs are based on massive experience – and as a result, only a very narrow band of specialized flying requires a parachute at all, and none for the airframe. Our society does not regulate the use of parachutes as safety equipment for over water flying, instead, the regs wisely require flotation equipment! I don’t want to float down out of control, I’d rather float after I splash! If I could not carry the raft, because the airframe parachute reduced useful load, I’d be passing on the ’chute, not the raft!
Maybe, one day, I’ll suddenly be wishing I had an airframe parachute to soften my arrival, you never know. But, nothing in my past, including three Transatlantic crossings, and a number of multi hour single engine over water flights, has the least piqued my interest to have a parachute. So in my opinion, equipped with a parachute is not the ONLY way to cross water.
As IR holders may recall with fondness from their ground school 
, on calm water it’s not necessarily Vso but rather (speed in knots) = 9*(tyre pressure)^0.5 which determines when an aircraft becomes a displacement vessel or ground vehicle.
With radial tyres and more than a few mm of water depth I find the constant is nearer 6 than 9, but would advise starting a little above the speed given by NASA’s 1963 formula anyway.
Incidentally, the laws of classical mechanics indicate that the CofG must be well behind the main wheels for stability after touch down, but does anyone know of a successful touch & go on water with a tricycle or amphib?
