I suggest, @jgmusic, reading back up this thread.
Ok, thanks Peter!
Peter – encouraged that you use the same Survival model (if it’s good enough for you…!). Interesting to discover SEMS as a servicing company.
The single layer, ie. cold, flooring is a concern but I guess that’s a compromise in being able to actually lift the raft out of the aircraft in an emergency.
It seems we would be advised to carry survival kits for both land and water – landing in unpopulated countryside presenting its own unique hazards?
So little is discussed about this in flying magazines etc. I’m surprised more attention is not given to it as part of the PPL syllabus, leaving it instead to the qualified pilot to make numerous flights before properly considering it…
I think, for most European flying, you don’t need anything too fancy in terms of extreme weather survival capability. For example I fly across the English Channel, and half the departures from my base go out over water and – at least momentarily – out of glide range. So my raft lives permanently on the back seat and I think this is much better than not having anything at all, especially as during most “mostly over land” flights one doesn’t wear a life jacket.
For more extreme environments e.g. flying Europe-USA via Iceland, Greenland etc, you probably want a better raft but then you will also be wearing a drysuit, usually…
The background to all this is that IME the vast majority of people flying over the Channel are not carrying a raft at all, and this includes most club school fly-outs to France. These rarely if ever ditch, probably because most of them have an FI in the RHS (to make the flight maximally billable 
) and he/she makes sure there is at least some juice in the tanks 
Also the planes tend to get flown frequently and the chance of getting trouble during that 20 minute time window (UK to Le Touquet via the shortest possible crossing) is very small.
I doubt the schools want to discuss this much in case renters start demanding a raft (which starts at about £1000). A raft can also be a hassle. They are also not keen to encourage “touring” because (a) it messes up their rental model – the standard solution of billing 2-3hrs for each day away is a bit steep – and (b) shows that most of the FIs know nothing about it… I found this when in 2012 I tried to do a “VFR into Europe” presentation; none of them supported it.
As for landing on land, there aren’t so many places in Europe where there would be no GSM signal, but it is possible. In addition to a handheld radio+GPS and two ELTs plus the fitted ELT, I permanently carry two sleeping bags, which when wrapped up in the original packing are very compact and cost and weigh nothing. One could also argue that some of Greek countryside has better 4G than the UK and this just shows that you could land in some field in the UK and have absolutely no phone signal at all, which is no good if you are freezing or injured. Most of Scotland and large areas of Wales are barren… but the solution to this seems to be quite cheap.
Peter wrote:
but then you will also be wearing a drysuit, usually…
I wear a drysuit for Irish Sea crossings during the time of year when the water is colder. I got a Ravenspring one, they make it to your measurements, and it fits over normal clothes. Even if for some reason I don’t get into the raft, with a lifejacket and the drysuit, the helicopter will get to me before the hypothermia will.
Which GPS do you carry in your emergency kit, out of interest?
Garmin 196.
It runs on non-rechargeable batteries which last years. I used to have a Skymap 2 which was similar (I used it post-PPL for a bit) but the 196 is a lot less crappy.
Brilliant, thank you.
I really do think a post-PPL survival course would be a great thing – learn all this stuff in one go and start flying fully prepared (or at least know how to!).
J
I did a sea survival course a couple of years ago. It was held by a north sea rescue helicopter pilot and it was quite disillusioning. The survival time in the North Sea even in summer time is astonishingly short. Also don‘t expect a rescue helicopter to show up quickly. There are times – at least in Germany – where they have none available. In those cases they have ask other countries for support…
You really don’t want to be in there ….
Dublin folk will be familiar of die hards having a daily swim (without wet suit) off Forty Foot in the Irish Sea all year round – the human body seems to cope with 30-45 minutes in the water, so hopefully in an immersion suit and life jacket you should last a few hours?
