I've flown across the channel in a Warrior a few times, wearing just life-jackets, and on the last occasion and after reading a previous thread on this topic, with a life-raft.
The real challenge, surely, is the eternal balance (or judgement) between cost and risk.
It seems that the four items you need, to be at the lowest risk are life-jackets, life-raft (£500), Location Device (£100?) and immersion suit (£200 each?).
Can someone verify these prices? How would you prioritise these?
On risk, don't most humans judge risk on whether it's happened to them or to someone close to them? i.e. the risk of getting caught for speeding feels much higher once we're caught!. Take smokers for example? People smoke, even though they know it can kill them. I wonder if smoking is more dangerous than flying (GA)?
Your average GA pilot has squeezed every penny together to be able to fly, and finds the safety costs a bit over the top, especially when most PPLs (judging from watching people loading and unloading from cross-channel trips) survive and fly in ignorance or denial; "it hasn't happened to me, or to someone I know, so it will be ok."
It is illogical to talk about cost when the ultimate cost is your's and possibly someone else's life. But for many, it comes down to a decision as to whether to find the £1,000 to buy the reduced risk or to use it for more flying or whatever. And because most pilots on most flights from most airfields survive, most people opt not to buy the reduced risk.
So, on the basis that this thread has got a few of us worried, what is the most economical way to get access to the safety equipment if you are an occasional (ie. once every two months) SEP channel/Irish Sea crosser for leisure?
Editted to point out that we wore clothes as well as the life-jackets, but had no other safety equipment
