Scatering of Cremated Ashes
 

I've read a few things on pprune about the practicalities scattering of ashes, and I'm aware some do it without CAA permission. I have a student who want's to dispatch cremated ashes from the air, but under the ANO I cant see any way of doing, other than as ballast.

Has anyone got CAA approval for this in the past, is there a CAA form to exempt from dropping articles?

Why not just get on and do it.

Use c152.

Use card board tube with end caps , the sort you use for posting maps.

Tie the tube to a piece of string you can keep hold of.

When at height remove end caps.
Be preparred for blow back in the cockpit.
I'm sure i had a piece of bone in my eye.

Last one i did the deceased wife reconned parts of her husband ended up, in the carpet, down the sink and up the Hoover.

You need a dispensation from the CAA about dropping things from aircraft, though that is very easy to get.

Dropping the ashes successfully though isn't easy, best to do it with a small parachute rather than trying to simply scatter them from the aircraft.

BigEndBob....Not a particularly helpful suggestion!

As SaS says, not too difficult to get a dispensation from the CAA - not sure how many shekels you may be required to hand over, but better to be on the right side of the law!

There must be a low risk way of doing this that doesn't involve getting dust in the cockpit.

What about taping a carrier bag to the underside of the fuselage and attaching some clever release ripcord?


SAS how would the parachute idea work to dissipate the ashes?

As they were both presumably spirits in the afterlife, would the husband's disintegrated state have mattered much?

How did she tell you? Are you also deceased? Anything's possible in the parallel universe that is pprune.

Launch using a tube with a small handkerchief sized parachute. Trying to shake it out of a container from a window is just asking for a face full of ash and bits.

You just wrap the ash up so that when the "parachute" deploys, the ashes just dissipate away from the a/c rather than in it.

Get a length of rubber or plastic tubing about 1/2 inch in diameter.
Open the window of the plane and put the one end out of the window first.
Then hold on tight and put the other end(the end thats still in the plane) into the ashes and it sucks it out like a hoover.
No mess no fuss.

Or if the person your chucking out the window is anyway Mil related its not to hard to get there remains chucked out of the Lanc or a nimbrod. I organised a family of one of the ladys who used to ferry spitfires to contact
the RAF and they were treated like VIP's by all accounts.

Best scatter of ashes I saw was on Otterburn ranges when several sneaky and down right dodgy looking staff officers came up to a gun and the SMIG dissappeared charge 2 was loaded ashes on top and the cart rammed.

Six rounds fire for effect and the chap was spread over otterburn by a FH70.
Lots of muttering by old chaps along the lines of "the bugger would like that its about the only range rule he had left to break"

All the DIY scattering of ashes I have heard storys about have ended up either the ashes become a permanet fixture in the aircraft or the whole lot goes overboard and the pilot ends up reading news papers for a week to see if some rambler has been brained.

There was a gentleman in central Scotland used to advertise to do this by putting the ashes in the smoke oil tank of his aircraft.

It seemed to me to be a spectacular and fitting send off.
DO.

I've been asked to do this a couple of times. The first time I checked with the CAA and they basically said that it was so unlikely that any ashes dropped from an aircraft would actually touch the ground, they don't normally go through the authorisation process and told me just to do it 'sensibly'.

My preferred method is the tube long enough to get the ashes out of the prop slipstream......

dispensation
 

Dont quote me but I think its about £50.

The time I did it it was relatively successful. Apart from the fact that the very fine dust gets into the aircraft and invariably into your mouth. I had a funny taste in my mouth for a few days.

There was a tasteful (ouch!) article about this in a flying magazine a few years ago. He filled the plane with soot on the first attempt. On the second attempt he stuffed a big carwashing sponge in the vent window of the Cherokee, pushed a long funnel past the side of it, and dumped away.

I would think that if you angle-cut a tube at the end to create a vaccuum and pushed the other end into the....cremains....it would pull it right out.

Just have somebody else flying when you do this, please. Something about midairs solving the problem for you.

Alternative Methods...
 

10 years ago I was in a PA28R off Catalina Island (West Coast USA, near L.A.) with a bloke whose Uncle had died recently. Uncle had requested he be scattered in the sea off Catalina, so we orbited at 5000 ft or so and one of the 4 of us on board cracked the door open 6 inches and threw the lot out in a plastic bag (a triple-layered arrangement - v. scientific)

There was no scattering, more of a splashdown. Not totally what Uncle wanted, but then you can't always get you want... ;)

Contact the CAA, they're cool about it.

Technique:

Be forward of prop, if poss. (not always poss)

Stretch arms out -

Don't cough/ breath in.

Do close eyes and shake

Don't let affectionate punters wipe their fingers down yer craft on landing.

VFE.

It's been a number of years since I was asked to arrange the scattering of ashes from aloft, but I recall that the CAA bill came to £150 at the time.

And yes, we did everyting wrong and the bereaved widow returned to earth looking like she'd been in a flour fight. Luckily, she had a great sense of humour...

jez

Go to the CAA website-`scheme of charges`-ORS5,SECT 3,3,(d),,no charge,,but it would be advisable to request permission,otherwise someone may think that you are spreading `fairy dust` about !!

Nah, it's chemtrailing!

Many years ago my instructor dropped dead with a heart attack and requested his ashes be scattered over the runway which the club happily complied with.

I was on approach to the same runway and as he was being scattered from a slow 150 which would fly up the runway I caught up too quickly to land below the going around aircraft.

I was then met with a faceful of my departed instructor as my aircraft was immersed in a cloud of his ashes.
He was my IMCR instructor and suspect he was giving me a last lesson in cloud flying :)

Oh well he got the last laugh and btw this is true

Pace

Not so recently my club was approached by a family to wanting to scatter some ashes. Aircraft booked for detail, Instructor at the ready. They arrived, took the lid off the urn and emptied the contents over the flower bed outside the club.