It is all in the co-ordination. Some of you have it…others of us don’t. For me it only takes a couple of strokes before I manage to coordinate breathing with my head being underwater…after that I am (soggy) toast. It seems Thud_and_Blunder and I achieved the same level of attainment (in swimming) during our previous lives.
However I have never found it a particular issue when I have been doing HUET, underwater escape training in the submarine tower or ‘dingy drill’ off the back of a high speed launch in the English Channel.
I haven’t seen many people that can swim very far in an immersion suit and an inflated lifejacket so I don’t feel at a significant disadvantage. I still feel that in the real event I could probably match the overall survival performance of a fellow pilot who is a mediocre swimmer but has sustained a broken arm (or similar) in the crash.
I am with those who concentrate their training on doing everything they can to keep the helicopter from becoming flooded with salt water … but I don’t discount the value of ‘quality’ recurrent HUET training either. However the morning spent in the local Hyatt swimming pool with the suitcase portable rig is too much like a ‘tick in the box’ for my liking.