The only reference I could find on G-WAVE was a PPRuNe archive, and they said that the wife, who remained on board, only got wet feet when she transferred from the aircraft into the lifeboat. So in this particular case I guess the cockpit stayed dry, or filled up with water extremely slowly. Obviously that provides a lot of buoyancy. Plus, it means that all the avionics and most of the electrics probably stayed dry as well.
But now that I think of it... All the composite aircraft that I remember from pictures or flying (Europa, DA-40 and Cirrus) have gull-wing doors or doors that open up upwards and sideways. In other words, the doors only extend from about halfway the fuselage upwards. If the bottom end is sufficiently sealed, you've got a pretty effective boat hull. So it might be because of this design (which may have its roots in the strength characteristics of composites) that composite aircraft do indeed float better than the average spamcan (with full fuselage height doors).
Mmmm. "Close all air vents" might actually be a very sensible emergency ditching checklist instruction.
Last edited by BackPacker; 30th Oct 2007 at 16:48.