Survival kits

[Genghis the Engineer]

Well, that's the image of the macho test pilot out the window

I meant to match Stik's Pitts you cheeky blighter.

Anyhow, macho test pilots tend to get weeded out very early, the old ones (which I aspire to be one day) tend to be quiet unassuming chaps with no egos and unassailable reputations - bit like John Farley really!

Sadly none of that does apply to me, but I'm not sure that the word macho does either. Ho Hum.

G

[MLS-12D]

3 Bear bangers! They must be big hefty guys!

A bear banger is a noisemaker, intended to scare off curious bears. See the description here. Unfortunately, there are not alway effective: see generally this story and this one; but better than nothing. Where I live, there are only black bears, which in my limited personal experience are usually more scared of people than the other way around, although admittedly there are occasional isolated attacks (typically, but not always, involving a sow defending her cubs).

I don't regard a bear attack as a primary survival concern, although if you watch Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin in The Edge, I would forgive you for thinking otherwise! BTW, they certainly did a great job of skinning out that huge bear with a small jack knife.

You can find some survival equipment for sale here. Note the lists of required kit for Alaska and Canada, in the "Articles/Info" section [actually the list for Canada is out of date, but still contains some good suggestions].

They also have pre-packaged survival kits for sale. Personally, I think that preparing your own kit is a much better idea (among other things, you can customize it to your specific requirements, and usually save some money whilst not compromising on quality); but certainly a commercial kit is almost always better than no kit at all. See here for reviews of various commercial kits currently available.

P.S. Stay away from the "Brunton Pocket Survival Kit", which is an impractical piece of nonsense (much better to spend the same amount of money for a basic compass). See further here.

[LowNSlow]

MLS neat links. I think I need some bear bangers

Bearbangers: 15mm Signal Cartridges with exploding flare insert. Rim and center fire. Perfect for: Pest control and distress signal.

they sound like just the thing for the next time I meet my ex.

Some people will do anything

Debbie Chomeczko protectively hugs her two children Calvin (left) and Jaime (right) while they observe the bear up the tree in her neighbours yard.

to get into the newspapers / TV ! Don't think protective hugging would be much defence against an irate black bear though......

[MLS-12D]

Words from a master pilot

This is from Flying Know-How by Bob Buck:

I carry emergency equipment in my airplane. In the Skylane it's a small red nylon knapsack. In it is water - about 5 quarts except when I'm going to fly desert country, then it's a lot more; also signal flares, signal mirror, a first-aid kit (not a store one, but one put together myself after talking it over with a doctor friend); food concentrates that have an indefinite shelf life, like pemmican, bacon bars, tropical chocolate - enough to last me a few days. I have a space blanket, matches, snare, fishing line and some hooks, one of those wirelike saws that wrap around their own handles, and a few other knickknacks. It sounds like a lot, but it's only a package about 15" by 14" by 9" and weighs 13 pounds. It sits back in the corner of the baggage compartment and is never removed except for periodic checking and bringing up to date. The water is in tough plastic containers that never leak. In the winter the water in them freezes when it's in a subfreezing hangar or tie-down, but it unfreezes and doesn't bother the containers. More than once I've felt a lot more comfortable knowing that stuff was back there.

[windy1]

but wot about the plane?

This survival business got me thinking about what you should do about the plane you just survived in.

Assuming you walked a safe distance away and used your mobile to let the key people know (or used the aircraft radio on 121.5 to call the nearest airliner if no mobile coverage) - then what?

Ask the farmer to keep an eye on it?
Make camp nearby until the recovery crew arrives?
Unscrew the Garmin, phone the insurers, go home
Others????

On reflection, I suppose a successful forced landing is one where you have these questions to deal with.

[MLS-12D]

Swiss Army Knife

It has obvious limitations, but Victorinox's large survival kit would certainly be better than nothing, and might fit the bill for light-duty survival situations such as are likely to arise in the UK.

[FJJP]

Honestly! Daft idea suggesting dental floss for hygiene to a Canadian. Why, don't they just tear a leg off a passing caribou and after eating the raw meat, gnaw on the bone until their teeth are clean? I mean, 'I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok.....etc'!

[FNG]

It is the vogue, this season, to revive threads previously thought dead. I have dug this thread up partly in order to eat it, as I have just crashed in the woods, but mainly in order to mention an interesting book called "Flying the Mountains", by Fletcher Anderson. It goes without saying that one cannot learn any sort of flying from a book, but this one makes for an interesting read whilst waiting to be rescued, or eaten by killer moose, despite getting away with more split infinitives than Captain James T Kirk himself.

The best bit of advice in the book so far is: "Fly like a girl".

Statistically, it says, women pilots have accidents because of loss of aircraft control, but men have accidents because of rotten judgments, and pressing on regardless. As with driving, so with flying: women can't park, but men have more accidents than women, and worse ones, too.

[High Wing Drifter]

300 feet of dental floss?

Hey don't knock it. You can use it to set rodent snares and garotte deer. The 200' of gaffer tape, with the right training, can be used to construct bear traps.

[witchdoctor]

Is that so the bear bangers can have their fun?