For those who have never flown the Queen of the Skies, a waterbird course was/is always something to do if you could/can. It's a potential life-saver, should a Seaking crew find themselves on the water with only one engine, as the aim is to teach how to get OFF the water again!
No doubt his Squadron colleagues will have discussed the
theory of winding up Nr & overpitching to get unstuck, but I'll bet they'll be quizzing him for detail of the experience when he gets back to work.
There are few helicopters that could even consider dragging themselves off the water on one engine, so it's good to see the Canadians are still teaching it. And of course the average airframe would probably take on some water in a ditching, but one would hope not enough to stop it getting airborne again, as it's only likely to ditch once! The airframes used for the waterbird course are normally kept for that purpose only, so
of course they'll try to minimise water ingress in those machines they regularly put in the water. There really are some real "Duh" comments on this thread sometimes.
While Prince William has a profession as his day job, albeit apparently part-time, he also has a destiny which is not of his making. Give the guy a break for bringing the skills of
our profession to the front page, instead of Royal-knocking a young gentleman who's making a good job of introducing himself and his wife to the world. He, like other members of the "Firm", may not get it right all the time, but he's not doing badly so far, IMHO.
For those who haven't yet learned, the media report what they want to, and how they want to - don't expect it to live up to what pprune members expect and maybe try to read the positive bits between the lines.