Ditching?
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How many successful ditchings are made in a given year in UK waters?
What is the secret of landing on the surface and not just stalling in or plowing in?
Jamming the door open with something very solid is advisable, the force of the water that breaks windscreens also shuts open doors very effectively.
The failure rates for engines given by IO are apparently dreamed up by someone. How do you get an average between 3000 and 10000 hours?
My personal statistics of engine failures are more in line with Timothys experiences
Life rafts have been known to sink.
What is the secret of landing on the surface and not just stalling in or plowing in?
Jamming the door open with something very solid is advisable, the force of the water that breaks windscreens also shuts open doors very effectively.
The failure rates for engines given by IO are apparently dreamed up by someone. How do you get an average between 3000 and 10000 hours?
My personal statistics of engine failures are more in line with Timothys experiences
Life rafts have been known to sink.
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bluskis
You appear to suggest that engines fail a lot more frequently than every 3k to 10k hours.
This cannot be right, if you think about it.
The TBO on most engines is of the order of 2k hours. It is a fact that most engines that come in for an overhaul are removed from a plane that is still in one piece and functional. They are not carted in on the back of a pick-up truck, surrounded by wreckage of a plane that had to do a forced landing.
Most planes, even flying school spamcans, spend most of their airborne time out of gliding range of an airfield.
So if the average life of an engine was say 1k hours, not only would there be a huge number of forced landings (of the order of every plane used for training ending up in a field every two years) but also not many engines would ever make TBO before they end up wrecked. At the very least, nearly every overhaul would involve a shock load inspection, which for a fact isn't the case.
For me, it is easy enough to see why some people have had bad experience with engines.
For a start, any statistically rare event, be it engine failures or rare diseases, are subject to clustering. So you can always dig up somebody who has done 10k hours and has had 10 failures.
Also there is a huge range of engines flying, in terms of condition, treatment by users, and maintenance standards. The average UK GA fleet age is 24 years, according to a CAA CofA inspector I spoke to. But this average conceals a huge standard deviation. A lot of planes are 50 years old. A very small % are brand new. Most training / self fly hire planes are 20-30 years old but they are looked at more often (Transport CofA) and don't get a chance to rust too much inside.
So there will be a big variation in engine reliability, with most of the factors being controllable by a careful operator. I bet you could say the same for accidents, too.
Regarding rafts, I spoke to a well established manufacturer selling various rafts including GA and (although they would say this) they claim at least 99% do work just fine - IF they are overhauled by the schedule, usually annually. In GA, few people carry rafts and those that do rarely overhaul them by the book - it costs about £100-£200 and there is no legal requirement to do it.
You appear to suggest that engines fail a lot more frequently than every 3k to 10k hours.
This cannot be right, if you think about it.
The TBO on most engines is of the order of 2k hours. It is a fact that most engines that come in for an overhaul are removed from a plane that is still in one piece and functional. They are not carted in on the back of a pick-up truck, surrounded by wreckage of a plane that had to do a forced landing.
Most planes, even flying school spamcans, spend most of their airborne time out of gliding range of an airfield.
So if the average life of an engine was say 1k hours, not only would there be a huge number of forced landings (of the order of every plane used for training ending up in a field every two years) but also not many engines would ever make TBO before they end up wrecked. At the very least, nearly every overhaul would involve a shock load inspection, which for a fact isn't the case.
For me, it is easy enough to see why some people have had bad experience with engines.
For a start, any statistically rare event, be it engine failures or rare diseases, are subject to clustering. So you can always dig up somebody who has done 10k hours and has had 10 failures.
Also there is a huge range of engines flying, in terms of condition, treatment by users, and maintenance standards. The average UK GA fleet age is 24 years, according to a CAA CofA inspector I spoke to. But this average conceals a huge standard deviation. A lot of planes are 50 years old. A very small % are brand new. Most training / self fly hire planes are 20-30 years old but they are looked at more often (Transport CofA) and don't get a chance to rust too much inside.
So there will be a big variation in engine reliability, with most of the factors being controllable by a careful operator. I bet you could say the same for accidents, too.
Regarding rafts, I spoke to a well established manufacturer selling various rafts including GA and (although they would say this) they claim at least 99% do work just fine - IF they are overhauled by the schedule, usually annually. In GA, few people carry rafts and those that do rarely overhaul them by the book - it costs about £100-£200 and there is no legal requirement to do it.
Sub Judice Angel Lovegod
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Picking up a couple of points:
The water came into the TBM via the door, which opens upwards from floor level.
Most of my engine failures....correction...all of my engine failures have resulted in both the engine and airframe being returned to service, either with new mags, CSUs, replacement fuel feed pipes, new turbine blades or whatever. Those in multis have been flown at leisure to convenient runways, those in singles have been limped or glided to runways.
So IO's vision of "rivers of oil" doesn't really bear analysis.
The water came into the TBM via the door, which opens upwards from floor level.
Most of my engine failures....correction...all of my engine failures have resulted in both the engine and airframe being returned to service, either with new mags, CSUs, replacement fuel feed pipes, new turbine blades or whatever. Those in multis have been flown at leisure to convenient runways, those in singles have been limped or glided to runways.
So IO's vision of "rivers of oil" doesn't really bear analysis.
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IO
My query of the statistics you quoted was the impossibility of having an 'average' somewhere between an enormous spread like 3000 hrs to 10000 hrs. An average, while not a precise figure without qualifications, should be more precise than this very large spread.
Engine failures do happen , and if they happen while over mountains or water you are going to have to be lucky to walk/swim away.
My query of the statistics you quoted was the impossibility of having an 'average' somewhere between an enormous spread like 3000 hrs to 10000 hrs. An average, while not a precise figure without qualifications, should be more precise than this very large spread.
Engine failures do happen , and if they happen while over mountains or water you are going to have to be lucky to walk/swim away.
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bluskis
Fair enough, but such an average would be meaningless, for the reasons given: the operator has a lot of control over the actual MTBF (unfortunately, without knowing what it will be)
Timothy
What % of GA ditchings are survived by all aboard? But even in asking that question, I am going right back to what I say to bluskis. What is needed is a breakdown of survivability versus sea state, carriage of rafts, carriage of EPIRBs, etc. Without that, it is like saying the average of 0 and 10 is 5.
Fair enough, but such an average would be meaningless, for the reasons given: the operator has a lot of control over the actual MTBF (unfortunately, without knowing what it will be)
Timothy
What % of GA ditchings are survived by all aboard? But even in asking that question, I am going right back to what I say to bluskis. What is needed is a breakdown of survivability versus sea state, carriage of rafts, carriage of EPIRBs, etc. Without that, it is like saying the average of 0 and 10 is 5.
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If you have a 400MHz EPIRB with you, definitely, and everybody should have one. But at £600-£1000, very few people going cross-channel will though. I have one in my emergency bag and would hope to grab that on the way out. But if you only just managed to escape in your drysuit, the chances are that you didn't manage to retrieve it...
For general reference www.equipped.com has lots of info on dicthing and equipment and lots of ditching stories.
QDM
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Yes, a very good summary of EPIRBs, thank you QDM. No suprise that McMurdo weren't happy about the test results 
I spoke to Sartech at the time of getting the Kannad non-GPS unit I have, and their view was that for normal UK/Europe (cross-channel over water) flying a GPS is not needed because the 400MHz satellite homing, combined with the low power 121.5 VDF signal, are sufficient for getting found reasonably fast. But outside the "civilised world" one may be relying solely on commercial shipping for SAR and a GPS EPIRB is essential.
I spoke to Sartech at the time of getting the Kannad non-GPS unit I have, and their view was that for normal UK/Europe (cross-channel over water) flying a GPS is not needed because the 400MHz satellite homing, combined with the low power 121.5 VDF signal, are sufficient for getting found reasonably fast. But outside the "civilised world" one may be relying solely on commercial shipping for SAR and a GPS EPIRB is essential.
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For cross channel flying,or in "populated" areas, a SART radar transponder might be of more use. If you activate it, it'll show up on every ships radar screen for miles around, and possibly (depending on type of radar) trigger an alarm on their bridge. They can home directly to you using radar.
The amount of shipping traffic is the channel is amazing, (and scary if you're on a yacht, in fog, no radar, no wind, and you're slap bang in the middle of the shipping lanes north of Casquets
)
EA
The amount of shipping traffic is the channel is amazing, (and scary if you're on a yacht, in fog, no radar, no wind, and you're slap bang in the middle of the shipping lanes north of Casquets
)EA
