Shark bait

[TurboS7]

For what it is worth avbug I enjoy your post and your answers, enjoy life, it is too short to get bent over the details. Dave Gardner

 

[jsoceanlord]

I just read that the TALIBAN pow's in gitmo, cuba would have to brave shark infested waters if they tried to escape. I think the author was being serious. I swim almost everyday near st thomas, usvi. It seems like I've heard that there have only been four fatal attacks in the caribbean ever, or four bites a year in the whole caribbean - something like that. It's hard to tell fact from fiction.

A couple days ago I caught a jumpseat in a DHL CAravan from st Thomas to San Juan - I'll take my three engine piston Trislander anytime. Of course if you ditch, the cargo is probably gonna come through the cockpit.

My night engine failure on climb out from Albuquerque a couple years ago in a Ce 210 is another story - i thought i was dead.

 

[aero99]

shawn posted:
" even with an EPIRB Cat II(about 2 generations better than the ELT), and a Mayday it took the Coasties over an hour to get to us and we were only 4 miles offshore."

That is pretty quick. The mayday call is probably what got them there so soon.

The last time I checked in on epribs the "new" one was a 733 mhz (or real close). If memory serves me correct, the satilites that receive these signals will cross every point on earth every 4 hours. So, if you hit the drink and your Eprib is working your first signal will take at least 4 hours to reach the Coasties. Coasties are alerted, but they won't do anything unless they get a second signal 4 hours later. On the first signal they will try to contact the owner who it is registered to, to make sure it isn't an accidental activation. So, best case senerio is 8 hours before they start to look for you. Better hope your in the Caribbean and not the North Atlantic. My uncle's Eprib went off last year accidentally on Beef Island and I got a call from the Coasties that was 3 hours after the initial activation.

Are Ebrips used on aircraft flying over the ponds? Seems like they should be as they are the best thing Mariners have as a distress sig whenoff shore or out of VHF range.

 

[TurboS7]

When I was running our Part 135 years ago one of our pilot's lost oil pressure(the oil filter holder/extention blew out) on a C-206. He was VFR at night at 4500 over Indiana,he headed for the nearest airport but didn't have enough altitude to make the runway. Being the sharp pilot that he was he just tried to land on the airport. He skipped across the runway and ended up in a cornfield. The corn stopped him like one of those barriers on an aircraft carrier. No damage to the aircraft and of course he was fine. We just had to change the engine and the propeller and pay the farmer for the corn damage. The reality is that in hard IFR the same things happens it is just that when you break out at 100 feet you only have 4 to 5 seconds to pick a place and land. I have had 5 total engine failures in a single engine and landed the aircraft successfully everytime without putting a nick on the aircraft. My total single engine time comes to 3054 hours, that is one failure every six hundred hours. Something to think about.

 

[ShawnC]

Not sure if they are used in the airliners but the EPIRB that we used was a Cat II with Intergal GPS. Those have about a 20 min responce time (time from intial transmission to time the USCG gets notfied) because they transmit along with the homing signal the GPS fix of the sat (updated every 20 mins). They just came out about 2 years ago, cost about $2,000.

As far as required I'm not sure if airplanes have to have it but all ships must have a Cat I (automatic release Cat II is manual) to qualify for the SOLAS status(of course there are other requirments like life rafts) which is required for most commerical ships.

An hour is a long time, considering the fact we had a USCG airstation 30 miles away, we had two USCG boat stations about 6 miles away, so with the VHF notification, with the beacon from the EPIRB should have made it rather quick deal (my boat gets 20 miles out in an hour).

 

[capnflyright]

I fly with an individual who ditched a PC-12 in the Sea of Okhotsk. The PT-6 only had 250 hours on it, but the airplane stayed afloat for nearly 2.5 hours! He says the airplane faired quite well all points considered. We fly throughout mountainous terrain(i.e. ID, MT, OR, WA, NV etc.) and we do fly this at night. Flying over central ID at night is most likely death 1: life 0. You either jump in the frying pan or you don't. Sometimes planning will only scare you of the obvious outcome before it happens.

 

[TurboS7]

So when that PC-12 was below us 120miles offshore he really was shark bait, ...after floating for 1.5 hours off course. (LOL)You brought up an important point, look at the reliability stats carry-on and don't worry about it. If what you don't want to happen happens then just deal with it.

 

[TurboS7]

that is suppose to say of course, my fingers just arn't jumping this morning.

 

[skyboat]

O.K., I gota chime in. The guys with the biggest cajones are the ones that fly offshore from Maine and Mass. to guy fish spotting for tuna and swords. They all use single engine planes (c-152, super cubs, etc) and they don't always look like the newest models in the fleet, if you get what I mean. When you are 250 miles offshore at 1000 msl you tend to hear every burp the engine makes, and then some. The only thing that has come close to me for that feeling is flying over mountains at night, IFR. I guess one positive side is when your offshore like that you're generally working with a boat but it can be a long flight to get to the boats. I made it to about 400 hours and then couldn't do it anymore. We use to have rafts and survival suits but I always wondered if I'd have been able to get a raft out of a c-172 or supercub after I'd ditched. Another hazard was midairs. If you were one a good sized school of fish there were almost always 2 or 3 other planes all trying to guide boats onto the fish. When you're looking at fish it's tough to look for traffic....

 

[TurboS7]

Feb. AOPA magazine has an interesting article about a full blown engine failure in a Bonaza and how he handled it. Lucky for him it was a typical VFR Florida day.