As for space, a day-trip to one of the Frisian islands might be a good way to test that before.
I tend to agree that building experience in incremental steps both for you and the family is important. Get some more time under your belt with short day trips which the family have enjoyed.
Transitioning from a training aircraft to a heavy complex single is not that straightforward – cut yourself some slack and give yourself several hours. Ask yourself if the training is sufficient to be proficient in all aspects of flight, and systems knowledge. In addition to general handling, will it cover operating in an ATC environment, cross wind practice, performance landing in a non ATC airfield, glide approaches and practice forced landings to a good standard. You are flying your family.
LeSving wrote:
It’s not black or white usually.Indeed not! So why pretend that it is?
Ditching is a highly confusing event, and very deadly even for grown ups.
It is not. Statistics show that the chance of surviving a ditching is around 90%. The problem is surviving in the water until you can be picked up.
I’m talking about actually surviving an event that is perfectly survivable on dry land,
You are kidding yourself if you think that. I would say the chaces of surviving a ditching are better than surviving a forced landing in mountains or forests — you know the kind of environment we have in much of Scandinavia.
Flying in daylight is a huge thing; I do that normally (2300 hrs versus 30hrs 
) plus you normally get better wx if you depart early in the day.
Regarding luggage, this is something I have been around many many times. One has to adopt a different mindset to airline travel, where people pack a suitcase with tons of clothes, shoes, makeup kits, etc. One has to pack soft bags and think about what is really needed. Women tend to pack a lot more but even a woman can get enough stuff for a week into a 10-15kg bag Shipping luggage within Europe costs a fortune…
Just to give @MedEwok another opinion. I would do the trip, but I would prepare myself carefully for the plane you will use by doing, as suggested by yourself, some short trips before together with the family.
And I would change my routing regarding the 45 nm flying over water. You can easily minimise the jump over the sea if you follow the coastlines. The maximum over water will be then 22 nm. The trip will be 49 nm longer. But you gain a lot in fact of security for your family and there will be no need to carry a raft. So you will gain luggage space too.
As regards flying over the water, engine failure isn’t really your biggest risk. A bigger risk, particularly for a VFR only pilot who has just 20 hours (so no real post training experience) is visibility.
10km vis sounds great at that stage. But 10km vis over open water is quite different. Often 10KM is combined with slack winds, and a grey overcast. The slack winds means that there is no great surface detail as there is no real waves and no white water. Combine that with a grey overcast, and you are left with no visible horizon and no real way of telling which way is up or down by looking outside. You can often see surface by looking straight down, but no other direction (and you can’t fly safely looking straight down all the time or you’ll become disorientated). Looking over the cowling or to the side is just the same shade of dark grey. In these cases flying lower might be your best option as you can see the surface closer to the aircraft and might be able to make out some surface detail.
You can fly over the sea 10 or 20 times before you experience this. When you do, you need to either turn back or fly on instruments. Neither of which are particularly pleasant experiences when your family are with you looking forward to a nice weekend.
So if vis isn’t 20km+ you’d be better off giving it a miss.
The other issue that comes to mind is how will you protect a 1 year old’s hearing? Can you really get them to wear a headset for that long? Is their head big enough for a child’s headset to block out the noise?
If you decide to do it, then do it yourself a few times in the aircraft that you plan to do it in. That way most things won’t be new to you when you do come to do it, and make sure you’re as current as can be at that time.
This trip seems eminently feasible, but, I would suggest, not by you at this stage. Flying with family adds pressure as will an unfamiliar aircraft. The fact you mention you must be back by a particular day means that you are placing additional pressure on yourself.
Personally I am less concerned about the overwater part (I did a trip at 8000ft over 100nm of water when a VFR newly minted pilot with a 1yr old baby in the back).
If you were able to commit to doing a lot of flying in the aircraft you want to use then that could be different. But you are essentially saying you might do 2-3 hours a month in the next 6 months. Not a lot of currency.
MedEwok wrote:
So the question would be: Do you think it is feasible (and sensible) for me to prepare for and fly this trip? Which aircraft would you select? Or shall we rather stay on the ground (which is also going to be much cheaper)?
It is feasible and sensible but it requires serious preparation and the family needs to know the conditions for this flight.
First of all, I tend to agree with MedEwok that most German SEP rental planes should be in a condition where engine trouble is rare. Of course the eventuality has to be taken into account but other than that I really don’t see this as the killer argument here. You mention an SR20, which if you can get it, would be pretty good for overwater with the fact that it has big doors and the all famous shute, that would basically put the overwater leg into a good perspective.
Other than that, the airplane does not know nor care if it’s over land or water. But @eddsPeter has a valid point here. You don’t need to fly a 48 NM leg over water, but you can fly over Fehmarn and Danmark crossing into Sweden and then turn right to Bornholm, quick and dirty calc gives that flight a distance of about 280 NM which means about 2-30 flight time. It is also more scenic for the family to have a look out of the windows. And you have plenty of enroute alternates starting with Lubeck, Lolland and Malmoe in case things don’t work out as they should. 22 NM over warter gives a mid point of 11 NM which means that you will be out of gliding distance from land only for a very short time. Obviously flying higher in these areas will buy you time and distance too. I would not think FL100 to be too high, even though I am aware that a lot of low land pilots seem to have a mental problem with it, we are quite used to it in Switzerland and nobody I’ve had on board yet has had any problem. Have a look in the POH of the airplane you wish to use and check out the glide distances. To stay withing gliding range of land on a 22 NM leg, in most planes 8-9000 ft will be enough.
MedEwok wrote:
Total weight of pilot+passengers+baggage would ammount to about 230 kg.
Most SEP’s can do that even with full tanks. I had a quick look around my database: The SR20 I have in there has a full fuel payload of 245 kg, a 172E I have in there has 286 kg and a measly PA28-180 has 300 kgs. On top of that, you really don’t need full fuel, but it’s nice if you can have it. Volume might be the bigger problem but that is easily checked: Once you know which plane you can use, take the baggage pieces and the stroller and do a dry loading. As for strollers: There are a huge variety of strollers available and some fold nicely while others are space killers. I found myself a nice Chicco Mini buggy which does not take much space as opposed to the McLaren or Bergsteiger my wife carries in her car and which fills her trunk to capacity.
Of course Bosco knows the weather much better up there than I do, but with good weather this trip should be great to do and pretty much one which I’d think a low time PPL with proper preparation should be able to do without much trouble. Clearly, the weather will be a defining factor and you need to have a plan B ready to implement if you see it won’t work out. But with good planning, I don’t see why this should be such a monumental undertaking.
What I’d do is to check out what planes are available and see if you can get checked out in them. Then fly that one on your own for a few hours, then take your family on a short trip maybe to Lübeck or somewhere just to see how they like it, then, if you have time, maybe fly the trip as a daytrip so you know the landmarks and have a feel how it looks like. Maybe take along an experienced pilot in the RH seat for that one.
If all of this works out, then I don’t see why you can not do this trip. The only thing you really have to know is that you have to have the guts to say STOP at any given moment if something does not look right. But that is someting which is valid for every flight.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Statistics show that the chance of surviving a ditching is around 90%.
Ditching in what and where? Everybody survives the first 2-3 minutes. I have only seen statistics for helicopters, and with proper training (helicopter upside down thing), then survival rate increases to 90% or more, from less than 50%. But then, a helicopter will turn upside down due to the CG (engines and rotor on top). In fact, half the trick is not to do anything, stay strapped in until it has turned over, which is voilent and very confusing. Anyway 90% fits well with a ditch in a helicopter with properly equipped and trained personnel.
I would also think most of the ditching in airplanes (in SEP’s) are done very close to the shore and in shallow water. Ditching instead of landing in the trees or rocks. This is very different from ditching in the open sea. Besides, if it were in the open sea, then I would think people have enough common sense to be properly equipped and prepared anyway, thus rising the statistics to something similar as for helicopters. Could be in warm and high traffic waters also.
I mean, ditching in the Baltic Sea with both your small children strapped in the back seat, upside down in a C-172. If you finally get them out, how are you going to do CPR on a floating/slippery/unstable aircraft ? How are you going to heat them up? What’s the survival rate of back seat kids after ditching? maybe they are the dead 10% ? I just don’t get it. Trips like that you do in a twin, SET, a proper sea plane, something with a BRS, or you wait until the kids are old enough to manage on their own, after proper training, maybe when they are 8-10-12 or something, depending on how “survivable” the kids are. Still, they are way too young for them to take any sort of responsibility for their own survival.
What’s the chance of this happening? very small, but I don’t really see what that has to do with anything in this circumstance.
I get that this would be a nice little trip. But, we have another thread here about a pilot allegedly being “distracted” by ATC and ended up dead. What the ATC did there is nothing compared to what your kids and wife may cause in the form of distractions (I don’t really agree they distracted her much at all, but take a look at the video and judge for yourself). Anyway, if you plan to take this trip, this is IMO one good reason to step up a notch to the Cirrus. I have no experience with the Cirrus, but in this case the BRS alone would make a world of difference in case of ditching, especially to those in the back. But fly it a lot first, so you don’t easily get “distracted” and fall out of the sky 
dublinpilot wrote:
The other issue that comes to mind is how will you protect a 1 year old’s hearing? Can you really get them to wear a headset for that long? Is their head big enough for a child’s headset to block out the noise?In my personal experice, yes. Around that age my kids tended to fall asleep very quickly once we were airborne.
LeSving wrote:
Ditching in what and where?Mostly SEPs. The statistics I’ve seen were from the US, so mostly lakes and oceans in/around North America.
I just don’t get it.
You don’t need to “get it”. You just need to accept the statistics.
What’s the chance of this happening? very small, but I don’t really see what that has to do with anything in this circumstance.
It has everything to do with it. A very common mistake in risk assessment is regarding risks as absolute. Either something is dangerous or it is not. Even accepting that the risk of a tragic outcome is 5x greater (just to pick a figure) in a ditching compared to a forced landing on land, the impotant thing is exposure.
I fly over water out of gliding distance to land less than 5% of my total flying time, which means an overall 20% increase in probability of a bad outcome. I am prepared to accept that risk. If I was based on an island far from the mainland (e.g. Gotland), so that every non-local trip wound involve an extended water crossing, I would see things very differently.
