To answer the original question: No
I’ve crossed the Atlantic in a SEP (Northern route), crossed Newcastle to Copenhagen many times, Bergen to IOM, Stockholm to Ivalo, Cannes to Pisa etc.
Living on an island every flight I do is over water. I hear of pilots who just won’t do it, fair enough but it’s just what you get used to. I have the aircraft set up to do it, raft, life jackets, ELT, PLB. I’ve taken the “dunking course” very instructive. I’d rather fly winter, night IFR over water than land. I think there is a better chance of surviving the landing/ditching on water than land. Never had to do either thank God so this is somewhat theoretical.
I’ve watched the growth of offshore wind turbine farms in the Irish Sea, at least they provide more refuges if you have to ditch than there used to be. A Seneca ditched between the IOM and Liverpool near to a gas rig. They never even got wet, the plane floated for about 5 minutes during which time the rig dropped the life boat and whisked them to safety before the plane sank.
A pilot pal now retired from flying has been everywhere in a Piper Comanche. He has flown over the North Pole, flown the northern and southern routes over the Atlantic many times, using dead reckoning and NDBs. He never wore a survival suit but always carried an HF radio. His aircraft had 5 fuel tanks giving nearly 2000nm range. Weights and balances were interesting apparently.
So, to answer the original question, yes, I would fly direct over the North Sea or any sea in a plane I knew intimately and I’d flown for some time. It would need to have an EDM700, good oil sample history, GAMIs, good compressions, iridium plugs and regularly flown.
As for flying high or low I don’t think it matters so much, if the engine goes bang 100nm offshore and you are peering through and oil splattered windshield at a static prop it really makes very little difference if you are at FL200 or 4000ft.
Those are my thoughts FWIW.
I do this fairly often, Warrior -161 VFR, wearing lifejacket and PLB with liferaft on seat behind me and lanyard clipped to pax shoulder belt. Only ever solo. I absolutely would not take passengers on the long crossing, or even a fellow pilot. It’s amazing how the presence of another person can affect your decision making and put you under pressure to get somewhere where they have to be. And then you have to imagine dealing with them in the case of an actual problem, especially in a PA-28. I’m happier alone (says a lot!).
However I don’t quite agree with Stolman about flying high. I go as high as I can get (10k in the Warrior) for radio range and time to find a ship. Recently I had to make a diversion around thunderstorms right out into the German Bight and expected a lonely ride but anything but! There are endless windmills and support vessels out there, 100 mi from shore. Actually the real problem with going high is stupid regulations around Holland, for VFR.
It’s true that the engine doesn’t know about the sea, but I did once meet a flock of huge migrating birds right under the cloudbase with no warning and no time to avoid bang in the centre of the N Sea and if I’d hit one, the use of radio would have been academic.
An interesting issue with some of these crossings is the lack of any VFR charts, as in Bay of Biscay Santander – Brest direct. (Carp wx in the Pyrenees, but CAVOK out to sea). Skydemon helps with that now, but I remember struggling with French AIS trying to get an answer to whether there was anything out there like danger areas, off the edge of the VFR charts!
As for flying high or low I don’t think it matters so much, if the engine goes bang 100nm offshore and you are peering through and oil splattered windshield at a static prop it really makes very little difference if you are at FL200 or 4000ft.
I am afraid I disagree. It makes an enormous difference. Longer gliding time, opportunity to restart (assuming it isn’t a full on bang), you can plan the ditching nearer to something, more time to get a radio call out.
I disagree too!
In the Sr22 you can set the autopilot to best glide speed and let it glide towards a ship, island, coast… hwile you prepare for ditching. It makes a BIG differece if you have 15 minutes or 1 minute for preparing yourself … and of course from a high altitude you can almost always reach something, and if it’s “only” a ship!
Joining the disagreement club here. The higher you are, the more time you have. Time = options. This can be a restart, navigating towards a ship, cleaning up the cockpit for the ditching, communicating with ATC, etc, etc. Whenever I fly over water, I try to be as high as possible. Which brings me to the original question. Would I fly across the North Sea? Yes, suitably equipped.
I agree too. There is a number of cases, documented with videos on youtube, where the rescue helicopter was right there as the aircraft ditched.
One example:
Admittedly this is highly unlikely to happen around the UK but it happened to, I believe, a Mooney which ditched in the Channel from about FL150, a year or two ago.
However you need an IR to be at FL150 anyway, in most places around Europe…
Of course I did not think about IR or not… in Germany VFR above FL100 is legal with a clearance. What’s really bad is that there’s restricted military areas above as low as 5000 feet many times … They should really let singles fly higher than that when it’s across open (cold) seas.
Yes with plb, raft and good fuel reserves – would want to be at a reasonable altitude for VHF. Risk appetite for night SEP is lower.
Would I cross the North Sea on the track boscomantico indicates? Yea, if the weather was fine and if I could fly at altitude.
To be properly equipped, which does include a survival suit in that area, is a no brainer in this exercise.
My primary concerns and possible show stoppers could be headwind, wave height and airspace restrictions which would force me to fly low. I would definitly like to go up to my maximum altitude for this exercise, that is FL150 or 160. From there, chances of finding a friend when needing one are a lot increased than if you have to scud run at 5000 ft, where you are in the water within a few minutes. From FL150, you have a good 15 to 20 minutes depending on the glide ratio until you hit the water, in an aircraft which has a best glide speed of around 100 kts this gives you 25-35 NM no wind ground track. To find either a ship or an oil rig or something alike would be likely out there.
