eurogaguest1980 wrote:
The idea of pancaking in sounds like it could reduce the risk of a flip, but it increases the risk that you will stall before you hit the water, and your body won’t like the vertical load.
I’ve never heard of an aircraft descending under BRS to “stall”….
Pig wrote:
I’m off up onto the high mountains tomorrow for a nice jolly along some snow ridges. If I slip and the other guy doesn’t jump the other side of the ridge, then it’s jam for us both. Or the other way around. But we do these things and get on. And the only reason is because life is too short not to
A breath of fresh air @Pig, thanks for that 
Amateurish wrote:
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.
I don’t think you were wrong – I do the same (and any trip for me involves an overwater leg). For instance, from Andreas to NW England/eastern England/NE England/SE England, I’ll fly to St Bees Head (on the Cumbrian coast), the shortest crossing to England, although it generally adds a few NM to the trip. For Scotland, always from Point of Ayre to Burrow Head. However, it’s a bit of a tradeoff, if I’m going to SW England I’ll do the long overwater crossing to North Wales because going all the way to St Bees Head then around Morecamble/Manchester LLR etc. adds hugely to the distance (as well as the specific risks of the Manchester LLR) so I’ll usually coast in somewhere between Llandudno and Anglesey depending on the destination.
Other precautions are always to be running off the main tank on overwater legs (and on return legs, burning the aux tank for most of the trip so there’s plenty of fuel in the main tank). This is because on my specific aircraft which does not have a mechanical fuel pump, the main tank gravity feeds but the aux tank depends on the engine driven fuel pump. Having plenty of fuel in the main tank means plenty of options – and I think a larger hazard with overwater crossings is not the engine stopping but weather (especially if you ever fly when it’s not perfectly clear blue skies) – and a long overwater leg means you are potentially a long way from a diversion airfield, and if you’re going to a coastal airfield they can get socked in very quickly and with little warning. So I always want a lot of reserve fuel and for that fuel to be in my main tank.
There plenty of flight between South-East of France and Corsica (106nm STP to Calvi, a bit more if you go to Bastia/BTA or Ajaccio/AJO), especially in summer time, and although I have done it several times, I usually don’t feel super well over the sea. The first time was with family in a DR400-120 with some headwind, it was a 2 hour long flight, but I was more confortable than the following flights, probably because my feeling of discovering the thing was stronger.
Now the shorter it longs, the better.
The fact that a DA40ng (F-HRPM) ditches 2 years ago was a wakeup call for all those are doing it all years long without a dinghy.
All clubs have dinghys now, and special training to use them, with sometimes ditching C/L, and restriction to not do overwaters if water temperature doesn’t go over a threshold.
The story has been published here, for french readers only (in a french newspaper)
Amerrissage_Corse_DA_40_Cannes_Aviation_2021_pdf
Yes I have a liferaft permanently on the back seat. Without a raft they will find your corpse…
On that Corsica run, plus the whole west of Italy, you are at ~1000ft and out of radio contact.
There is another REX (Lesson Learned in english :P) from the 182SMA that ditches in July of that same year 2021, where they applied a Ditching C/L of their club, that was very usefull, but brought another item into question, the action to trigger the ELT before ditching, something I was eager to do until I read that rex. Actually the noise on the radio was making the discussion very hard to be effective enough.
The DA40 did a pancake ditch, and the 182 (not RG) did a flip. It’s hard to tell if piloting skills was in question (I know the FI of the DA40, she’s a very skilled pilot). Indeed using full flap give a nose down attitude that could prevent the tail to touch the water first. If engine bay is touching first, you will probably flip.
Sully didn’t get to full flap while diving in the Hudson, reportedly (not by him) because flaps in full (on a a320) would prevent a progressive deceleration on the water, but would also help to get a nose high attitude on the contact.
My Bolkow couldn’t carry a liferaft. Some years ago a C152 with a liferaft and two guys was lost Inverness to Benbecula in December. They hit a mountain.
I guess clarity is a perspective thing.
