Shark bait

[TurboS7]

All you guys that fly single-engine turbine aircraft over water-how do you feel about that. We always laugh and say to each other "shark bait" when we are 125 miles off the coast and we have a single engine PT-12 or whatever below us. It may be turbine but I have had tons of flameouts and have had the guts of them puke out more that once. For that matter how do all you mountainair guys feel about flying SE in the mountains down to LIFR on your freight runs?

 

[Willie]

We stay close.

In the T-34C, most of us stay pretty close to the shore; close enough to dead engine glide to the beach. I've never been more than 15 or 20 miles off shore in the turbo weenie, but that was at an altitude of 10k or so and on the way into Key West, so I would have just swam the rest of the way to Duval Street.

We get a lot of vectors for approach that are over the water here at Pensacola, and we just try to keep our speed up to give us a little more time if something happens to the PT-6. A couple of the Air Force types refuse vectors over the water at night (heh heh) but that's the exception. We Navy types will just keep making fun of them until one of us has to ditch, then we'll realize they were right all along.

 

[XJAVRO]

I don't even like going over water in a twin. You ETOPS guys have a screw loose.

 

[avbug]

Personally, it doesn't bother me much. I've never been big on water (never cared for heights, either), but if the choice is a forced landing in the water, or in the rocks in a canyon, or anywhere...most of the time it matters very little. What you do after the forced landing matters, but having the equipment to deal with the event after the fact makes the biggest difference. Having raft, suit, water, mirror, and the works, makes a difference.

If the airplane goes down at night over the hills, or it goes down in the day over the waves, it doesn't matter a whole lot. Down is down, broken up is broken up. Letting people know where you are, always planning for that eventuality in a real-time awareness that it could happen, and being prepared for the event when it does, is what counts.

 

[InHot]

AVBUG & Ditching

You know, in order to make use of your survival skills and equipment you must first survive impact.

Just how much experience/training do you have in emergency egress out of a sinking aircraft? From your post it would seem you are quite comfortable with a ditching scenario.

Would you elaborate where you gained this composure?

Being aware of the background and experience of someone with such strong opinions would help me with my decision as to whether to lend any veracity to them or to simply dismiss what has been opined.

Right now I'm leaning towards the latter.

BTW I'm a retired Marine Corps aviator with over a year of living on and flying off of BGBs.

 

[Huck]

When I first got on the DC-10 I spent a day doing emergency drills, the slide, and discussing ditching. Somewhere towards the end they mentioned that there has never been a succesful wide-body ditching. Something to think about in the tracks south of Greenland some cold winter night....

 

[TurboS7]

You know what the difference is between flying the North Atlantic in the summer vs. the winter. During the summer if you ditch you will live 5 minutes, during the winter you will live 1 minute. As for landing I'll dead-stick the 738 down the glacier on the Greenland mainland before I even think of putting it in the water. Neither is a great prospect but since I fly the route at least twice a month I have to think about something.

 

[T-handle]

Great Whites

I used to instruct/fly in the San Francisco Bay Area. Off the bay area coast, about 40-50 miles is a small island chain(Farrollon islands) that is a refuge haven to seals. Consider, that part of the Pacific Ocean is cooler and is a PRIME feeding ground for Great White Sharks. Every year thousands of seals will flock to this island and great whites will just hang around the shores enjoying a tasty feast.

At our flight school we always dared one another to fly a twin to the islands and back to check for sharks. I would've hate to have ditched an aircraft ANYwhere near this area.

Btw, there are a few boat companies that offer services to swim with these Great Whites in cages. Seriously.... they'll ship ya out there, drop a big ol steel cage in the water, bloody up the water, and you hop in the cage and watch these massive sharks swim around you.

 

[BluesClues]

I also used to instruct in the SFO/Bay area. We used to call the approach in MRY the shark bait arrival since ATC would take you down to about 2500 feet or so and SEVERAL miles off shore. Geez, the things I used to do to fill my logbook.

 

[Freight Dog]

You should see flight training in Hawaii. Cross country flights... well, unless you are on the Big Island where you can go from Kona to Hilo, you have to go off-shore. Everywhere else, you go off-island. Primary students in Hawaii fly their first cross country from Honolulu to Lana'i, all over water. Or say from Honolulu to Lihue on Kauai. Now the waters off-shore here are WAY WAY choppier than anything I've seen in California, Florida and the Carolinas. Granted, the water here is also 78-80 degrees year round, but currents and rough seas would definitely be no fun.

Gotta give it to the people who fly little beater Cessnas and Pipers around here.

 

[avbug]

Inhot,

My specific background (and me) is of little consequence, but yes, I am comfortable, as much as one can be, with the prospect. As much as dealing with in flight fires and structural failures, systems losses, powerplant failures, etc. I have direct personal experience in each area, and while we all certainly hope to only deal with such eventualities in a simulator or the classroom, I have learned by expeience that most all such scenarios are not necessarily emergencies, but learning moments of intensity.

Aside from water training, I have practical experience putting airplanes in the water, as a floatplane pilot. I also have practical experience getting from the water into a raft, floating for extended periods without support gear, and swimming in flight gear. This also includes water jumps and water work with parachutes and jump equipment. This should be minimal training for anyone considering overflight of large expanses of water, and in the very least, specific training with the equipment to be used.

The point of my previous post is that for the most part, it matters little where the forced landing under adverse conditions occus, because ultimately you're likely to die. I've spent considerable time working airplanes in very low visibility close to the ground in rough terrain. Under such conditions it takes very little to put an airplane in the hillside, and it is very rarely survivable. The same for night work in the mountains, or low level, or low level night work. Over water work presents it's own unique hazards, not the least of which is drowning.

Impact issues and hydraulic forces may excessivley damage structures, trap occupants, and the environment may lead to hypothermia and death even if escape is successfully made. Emergency water landings have unique risks such as depth perception, which may cause some spectacular failures when attempting to approach the surface. Glassy water scenarios are one such example.

One may survive impact, only to be unable to properly use survival or lifesupport equipment. I was acquainted with an individual years ago who successfully ejected from an aircraft, but broke both arms upon exiting the airplane. The high speed ejection, and subsequent physical injury prevented him from activating his LPU on impact with the water, and despite being conscious, he drowned. Now, water activated LPU's are standard. Then, they weren't. All he needed to do was pull a little cord, and instead, he slowly drowned.

Is ditching a minor deal? No. It's a big deal. However, my response was that it doesn't bother me much. I've spent much of my career working in high risk situations, and working in high risk employment. One could spend all day becoming neurotic dwelling on the risk, or one might spend all day working professionally to mitigate the risk. I choose the latter. It doesn't bother me, because I have more important things to think about. I have routinely been in situations in which equipment failures or other concerns would cause situations to develop, about which I could do nothing. If one can do nothing, then one shouldn't worry. One should concentrate on situations that can be dealt with, and leave impossibilities to fate, and to the preventative measures taken to keep fate at bay.

I don't care which way you're leaning. Have you something to contribute to the question at hand, or is the time best spent attacking the credibility of other posters? How do you feel about single engine work over mountains, at night, and over water? I believe that was the question, not what avbug did to feed his family for the past xxx years. What avbug did doesn't really matter, nor does avbug. I don't care for being in the water, over the water, or on the water. That doesn't prevent me from being there, as needed. I don't care for heights, either. That doesn't prevent me from flying an airplane, or exiting an airplane when occasion permits, or the need arises. In short, no; I don't let those things bother me.

Save your veracity. Dismiss the opinions if you find them too strong. Others do.

 

[Cornelius]

Sharks are a very big problem on the West Coast from Ukiah on down to the cape of Baja. I've windsurfed in the San Francisco bay area for the last two years and have been dead frighetened to even go outside the Golden Gate Bridge. Even around that bridge, the warden (great white shark) has been spotted chomping on seals just underneith the bridge. I have sailed around Bodega bay Half Moon Bay out on the coast and when I fall in the water, I try to get up and going 30 mph as fast as possible. Beaches are closed on numerous occasions year around due to great whites patrolling the shore line.

Los Barrilles, Baja Mexico I've spent a lot of time windsurfing down there to. What I can tell you is I have spotted at least 2 Maco Sharks, which are deadly, and I windsurfed right by their arse. They are smaller than the Great Whites but they are mean buggers. Again when I fall in the water, I get scared and try to get up fast to avoid the sharks and the mast high sets.

My conclusion is, eventhough you survive a ditch, if you aren't in a raft you are in some big trouble. If hypothermia doesn't snuff you out, the sharks will. My saying is, "The only good shark is the one in my shark fin soup."

 

[BluesClues]

Cornelius, you've definately gotta set of solid brass ones. I've spotted lots of sharks all up and down the coast from the air. You wouldn't catch me cruising the waves down there!

 

[InHot]

[QUOTE...The point of my previous post is that for the most part, it matters little where the forced landing under adverse conditions occus, because ultimately you're likely to die. [/B][/QUOTE]

Bubba, The above quote goes to my point in my original post. It seems such a fatalistic approach to flying. I've never met a pilot who approaches a flight with this attitude. Yes, there are some dicey circumstances we may encounter; extended overwater opeations, flight in mountainous terrain, etc.

There have been times I've thought "I'm s*****d if I lose an engine now." And what did I do when I experienced that thought? If not able to change my environment immediately I devised a course of action should the worst happen, so that I knew what actions I would take to minimize aircraft damage and maximize our chances of survival.

Of course we should always go into these situations thinking ahead, anticipating the problems and thinking through our actions prior to experiencing them.

I flew Cobras with two engines. However the two engines were splined to 1 transmission. Lose an engine, no big problem, you could fly single engine (although you couldn't hover, which would require a slide on landing on the ship, which the Air Boss may or may not approve, but that's another issue).

About the transmission, lose that and you immediately transition from a flying object to a falling object that is breaking apart as it comes down. A bad thing. Procedure for an impending transmission failure (chip light) was to land IMMEDIATELY (not ASAP, but now!). That meant if you were over water, you were going to get wet real quick.

So how did we handle that? We trained, we planned, we discussed. We went to water survival every 4 years. We endured the helo dunker where we practiced exiting an inverted sinking aircraft while blindfolded, wearing all our flight gear. We prefighted our survival equipment, we wore our anti-exposure suits, we always knew where we were and where the boat was.

Point is, we did not put out of our minds the possibility of ditching , rather we thought about it every time we strapped in (probably more so at night) and we knew what we would do should it happen.

Same goes for TERF flying. We perfomed map studies, we learned the terrain, we understood the capabilites of our aircraft, and our own. We discussed, planned and then flew the missions.

And despite all of this I know lots of dead pilots, guys who have drowned in aircraft, those who have flown into the ground and died of "blunt force trauma, " guys who have died screaming as they burned to death. I also know guys who have survived these same scenarios.

So yeah, when I flew over water, or in montainous terrain at low altitude, and now when I rotate at Vr with 50 pax in my airliner I think about all these things.

But I continue to fly because I believe in myself, my training and the equipment I operate.

 

[LearLove]

SHARKS THEN AND NOW

SINCE IM TRYING TO FIND AN EXCUSE TO PUT OFF DOING THE WASH AND CLEANING MY APARTMENT I'LL PLAY.

I AGREE WITH YOU GUYS 100%, BUT A FEW YEARS AGO I WOULD HAVE SAID YOU WERE WHIMPS.

I GREW UP SURFING ON THE JERSEY/MD/VA SHORE AND OFTEN SAW AND SURFED ALONG WITH SHARKS. TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE THESE WERE LEPORD SHARKS (KIND OF LIKE BLUE SHARKS) OF 4 TO 6 FEET. SOMETIMES A GREY TIP WOULD SHOW UP.

NOW JUST TO PROVE THE IDIOT TEENAGER THEORY I (WE) WOULD OFTEN SURF IN THE EVENING AT NIGHT OFF THE FISHING PIERS WHERE THE FISHERMAN WERE CLEANING THE DAYS CATCH AND THROWING THE SCRAPS OVER.

ONE EVENING WE WERE OUT AND IT WAS FLAT. WE SAW FINS IN THE SURF AND YOURS TRUELY WENT SWIMMING AFTER THEM. I NEVER COUGHT THEM BUT IT JUST PROVES THE ABOVE THEORY. KNOW THAT I THINK OF IT THAT COULD ALSO BE THE REASON IT TOOK ME 5 YEARS (PLUS SUMMER CLASSES) TO GET THRU COLLEGE.

WHILE I WAS A SENIOR IN COLLEGE I GOT A JOB TOWING BANNERS OVER THE SAME BEACHES. NEEDLESS TO SAY, I DON'T SURF MUCH ANYMORE. (THERE'S LOT O SHARKS OUT THERE)


THE EAST COAST SHARK ROUTE (V139 BETWEEN SEY AND HTO) OFFERS A GOOD VIEW. WHEN YOU TAKEOFF FROM ISP IN LATE SUMMER YOU CAN SEE SCHOOLS OF SHARKS OFF FIRE ISLAND TRAILING THE SHRIMP AND OTHER FISHING BOATS LOOKING FOR SCRAPS. THE SAME AS YOU GET DOWN TO JERSEY (BETWEEN BLM AND ACY). IT MAKES THE PHL-ISP ROUND TRIPS MORE FUN.


TAKE CARE

FLY/SWIM SAFE