crossing the channel

[rans6andrew]

I have in the back of my mind some restriction about time/distance from land while crossing the channel and the carriage of transponders or PLBs.

I think it is "no more than 10 minutes from land if you don't have a transponder".

Can someone confirm or correct me? The aircraft is a three axis microlight so it is legal without a transponder on both sides of the water.

Ta,

Rans6.......

[hoodie]

m. Berger, there's no 10nm offshore requirement for a Flight Plan (although file one if you wish). The trigger for needing one is when crossing an International FIR boundary.

You're correct about no UK requirements for transponder or PLB/ELT when crossing the Channel. The French don't require a transponder, and microlights don't need to carry PLB/ELT.

[patowalker]

The carriage of an ELT was required if flying

(bb)at a distance of more than 10 minutes flying time at normal cruising speed away from land suitable for making an emergency landing

Microlights were granted an exception to use PLBs, instead of ELTs, but now all non-commercial flights are exempt.

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/ORS4_902.pdf

Microlights are not required to carry an ELT or PLB in France either.
https://www.sia.aviation-civile.gouv...2008_10_EN.pdf

[Jan Olieslagers]

Microlights are not required to carry an ELT or PLB in France either.

but I understand they do be required to in Austria, and it must be the 406 variant too.
Not that it matters in the present subject.

[rans6andrew]

thanks to all who responded.

I knew there was something but I didn't remember it being exempted. As it happens I have a 406 PLB which I will be carrying.

Unless the winds are worse than the forecast we won't be going via Austria, we are heading through France to Northern Spain.

Rans6...

[peterh337]

There is no requirement for this but anybody crossing the Channel should carry a raft.

A PLB won't do you much good unless, possibly, you have an immersion suit and are happy to be bobbing up and down, for possibly many hours, with your head sticking out of the water, and your arm holding the PLB.

You can now get life rafts down to 7-10kg - Survival Products, from e.g. Harry M. I always fly with one of these.

[patowalker]

7-10 kgs is too heavy and probably too bulky for a microlight two up. A drysuit, a PLB and a short crossing have to do. The closest SAR helicopter for the Dover/Cap Gris Nez crossing is at Le Touquet, so don't delay getting on to Lille.
Les hlicoptres de la MARINE NATIONALE

[Jan Olieslagers]

Peter, I am sure this has been discussed over and again but it's a subject I have not yet come to terms with. I'd much love to cross the channel one day - I visited Headcorn driving and it seems a very likeable place! - and many more there must surely be! - but the security discussion leaves me unsure.

Crossing from Cap Gris Nez to Dover, remaining below controlled airspace with my humble microlight, how many minutes will I be needing a raft as plan B, i.e. be unable to glide to the closest beach? Is this short while worth the hassle , the cost, and the extra weight?

And if do carry such a raft in said humble microlight, high-winged, what are the chances for myself and a possible passenger to get the raft out and upside up and inflated and ourselves transferred to it before the ship flounders? Small chance, if any, I should reckon, though periodically repeated training might help.

Until I get this sorted, my long trips will rather be to the East and/or South.

[peterh337]

7-10 kgs is too heavy and probably too bulky for a microlight two up

I would think the weight of the extra fuel burnt flying all the way to the piece of UK coastline nearest to France, and the same on the French side, is way more than 7kg?

[patowalker]

I would think the weight of the extra fuel burnt flying all the way to the piece of UK coastline nearest to France, and the same on the French side, is way more than 7kg?

Yes, but most microlights will be limited to about 15kg baggage and most of those flying to France are not just going to L2K for lunch, so they are usually up to that limit with clothes, camping gear, spares, oil and tools. Then when you get to the other side, there is little space left for the drysuits and lifevests. I have yet to see a microlight equipped with a raft.

It's a whole different world, Peter,. You should hitch a ride one day and enjoy some real flying.

[BackPacker]

And that's apart from the challenge of actually deploying the raft, and getting into it.

In a low wing aircraft you stand a reasonable chance of landing upright and having some time to deploy the raft, then enter the raft from the cockpit or from the wings. If you're (very) lucky you might not even have to get wet.

A weight-shift microlight fuselage has no buoyancy to speak of, and will probably submerge up to the wing almost instantaneously. The wing itself might offer some buoyancy, but by that time you are certainly wet, and probably struggling to get out of the aircraft yourself anyway. Taking the raft with you in those conditions is going to be an incredible challenge.

Bobbing up and down might be uncomfortable but will not kill you. Hypothermia will, and the best protection against that is to avoid getting wet in the first place. So in a weightshift microlight, my number one choice would be to get a decent drysuit/survival suit plus a suitable life vest. Secondary items would be the PLB and something called a RescueStreamer. Or a smoke canister. Or something else that makes you very conspicuous, so the time to locate you is minimized.

[peterh337]

most microlights will be limited to about 15kg baggage

I often read things like that, but how do you square it with the general obesity level in the population?

I weigh 75kg now. Some years ago I was 70kg, and also 80kg. I am trying to get back down to 70kg. So there is a 10kg variation for a start.

But I am not exactly "fat"; many people (not just men but also women) of my height are 90kg+. If I had 15kg payload reserve and went from 70 to 90 I would have to give up flying. Looking at other pilots, you don't need a PhD in social science to work out that pilots are often in the obese category.

Then you get the "bigger" blokes who are 90kg without being "fat".

So who buys these microlights?

I guess that with an open cockpit there is nowhere to carry anything anyway...

You should hitch a ride one day and enjoy some real flying

How can you when there is just 15kg spare?

[Jan Olieslagers]

If you think we have open cockpits you've really no idea of our way of flying. No surprise.
As for the weight issues, I don't have any as I generally fly alone, though not out of choice...

Yes, with two people of 90 or more kgs, the typical two-seat 80 hp-Rotax-powered microlight would have a legal problem, yes. But one sees remarkably few such heavy-weights around our fields. Perhaps we keep in good trim by doing our own maintenance?

[patowalker]

So who buys these microlights?

GA pilots who have had enough of the EASA BS.

BTW, I have built 3 from kits. One from a factory in Uherske Hradiste and two from different manufacturers in Kunovice.

[A and C]

Stark realality

So to put is very bluntly if a pilot without a life raft has an engine failure over water the chances are he will die in the water even in the summer, in the winter this death is likely to take less than 15 min.

SES can supply a very light single man life raft ( the type that fits into ejection seats) I would think that the limited space on a micro light would not preclude one of these.

Survival Equipment UK | Parachutes | Ejection Seats Servicing | Liferafts

[dublinpilot]

Bobbing up and down might be uncomfortable but will not kill you. Hypothermia will, and the best protection against that is to avoid getting wet in the first place. So in a weightshift microlight, my number one choice would be to get a decent drysuit/survival suit plus a suitable life vest. Secondary items would be the PLB and something called a RescueStreamer. Or a smoke canister. Or something else that makes you very conspicuous, so the time to locate you is minimized.

As someone who lives on an island, where the only realistic route off it for me is 54nm across open water, this is a subject that I've give a lot of thought to.

Bobbing up and down might not kill you, but uncomfortableness isn't the problem here. The problem is conspiciousy. When warning a dry suit or just a life jacket, only your head sticks out of the water. If you've ever seen the view from a S&R aircraft (I've never been in one, but seen the photos/videos) you're realise that it's next to impossible to see a head popping out of the water when your looking at 10+nm of water in any given direction. The target is simply too small.

This was brought home to me at a S&R organised training evening when S&R showed us a photo from one of their missions. They told us that someone was in the water in the photo, wearing a lifejacket and asked if we could see them. We were in a nice warm room, with a photo that wasn't bouncing around, in good light and with about 30 people looking at it, and not one of us could see the head in the water.

A life raft is a much bigger target and much easier to be seen.

If you just use a dry suit, then you need something else to help you be seen. The smoke canisters (of which I have one) and rescue streemers are good, but also have some drawbacks. Firstly you need to hold onto them until needed (or have them attached to you in some way, which isn't always easy). If they aren't attached to you, then your chances of holding them until needed is slim, as your body gets colder even in a dry suit. They are one time use only, so once used, you don't have a second chance.

Interestingly the S&R team told us that most people let this off too early, when they first see the helicopter. Apparently you need to wait until the helicopter comes quite close to you or they are unlikely to be seen as they will be looking much closer to themselves.

PLB's are a good option, but as Peter said you'll need to hold them out of the water. Some of them (certainly the cheaper McMurdo one) doesn't float and hence the need to hold them out of the water. There was a test done of different models a few years ago to see how long it took them to report in real world conditions, floating on the surface of the sea (for the ones that floated). Most were between 1 and 4 hours if I remember correctly, and this is a long time to be in cold water even in a dry suit. The most popular one, the expensive McMurdo model NEVER got to report the position. It would seem to me that a PLB needs to be kept out of the water, and you just can't do this with your hands. It needs to be in a life raft to have a reasonable chance of working.

The other disadvantage of a dry suit, is that you need to have them for everyone on board. Ok if you're the pilot, but do you have dry suits to fit all your passengers?

And finally the bobbing about does have it's own dangers. Apparently spray from even a light chop in the water is similar to water boarding when you just can't breath without water spray going up your nose, which quickly leads to exhaustion. A spray hood is highly recommended apparently (though I don't have one).

That's not to say that dry suits are no good. They certainly keep you alive a lot longer, and are ok if you have one for everyone on board, but they do nothing to speed up the rescue, so you'll need every one of those additional minutes to give maximum time for rescuse.

It's also unrealistic to think that you'll be rescued inside an hour. This can be the case in ideal circumstances....you're talking to a controller (and many micro pilots prefer not to) you get a mayday out which is heard, and you get a good position report, the ASR helicopter is already in the air and not already on a mission, and the weather/visibility is good and it's not starting to get dark. I think in reality most rescues take longer, though I've no evidence to back this up....it's just the impression I got from our ASR presentation.

All this is not to say that life rafts are a panacea either. They suffer problems too. You need to get it out with you, you need to inflate it, and you need to be able to right it if it inflates upside down. Most importantly you need to be able to get into it. This sounds simple but having tried it in a nice warm swimming pool, I can tell you it's far from straight forward.

The one I tried with had an inflatable step and as a small/light person I didn't have much problems using the step. Most of the others took a few minutes to get in even using the steps, as the steps kept submerging under their weight. Looking UP at the life raft wall from the side if it, while swimming in the pool, I realised that without some aid to getting in (such as the steps) it would be impossible to get in from a swim, even in a nice warm pool.

It's worth thinking about if you plan to go over water. While life rafts might not be a perfect solution, if you manage to get into one you are in a LOT better suitation than if you are in the water in a dry suit.

Oh by the way. The S&R guys reminded people using dry suits that the insulation comes not from the dry suit but the clothing underneeth. Many people don't wear layers of warm clothing underneeth and hence the dry suit doesn't give them the time that they otherwise could expect.

Ditchings might not be very common, but there are is usually at least one every year in the UK.

dp

[BackPacker]

DP, all very good points.

Maybe we should no longer be talking about "survival equipment", but instead talk about a "survival system" (to give it a fancy name). This to suggest that you need a number of components that all need to work together to
- Get both you and the components of the system out of the aircraft (and the type of aircraft may therefore dictate what you need to carry on your body, and what you can reasonably expect to be able to take with you as a separate component - egress from the tub of a submerged weightshift microlight is a whole different game than egress from the cockpit of a low-wing four-seater with gull wing doors or a sliding canopy)
- Keep you dry (and thus warm)
- Keep you out of the water (if possible)
- Keep you more or less healthy and functioning (spray hood, drinking water, seasickness tablets, ...)
and
- Make sure you are found

No single component, whether it's a life jacket, a drysuit, a life raft, a PLB or whatnot, can fulfilll all these tasks. So to say that you need to use a life raft instead of a dry suit (or vice versa) doesn't make sense, as both play a different (though partially overlapping) role in the survival system.

[patowalker]

Ditchings might not be very common, but there are is usually at least one every year in the UK.

AFAIK there have only been 2 microlight fatalities in the Channel and one died when run over by his would-be rescue craft. The other was in mid-winter and the pilot had not donned his drysuit.

Microlight pilots are aware of the risks, but you only have to spend some time at Abbeville on the Blois show weekend to see how many clacukate that risk to be small. On the Dover/CGN crossing, under normal conditions, a microlight is vulnerable to engine failure for under 10 minutes.

[Rod1]

“So to put is very bluntly if a pilot without a life raft has an engine failure over water the chances are he will die in the water even in the summer, !

Cobblers! On the short crossing my MCR is out of gliding range of land for 90sec. Le sleeve is the busiest shipping lane in the world. You often have at least one military vessel and a number of yachts within gliding distance. Most average PPL's will not get into a raft unless they have had specialist training.

Rod1

[abgd]

AFAIK there have only been 2 microlight fatalities in the Channel and one died when run over by his would-be rescue craft. The other was in mid-winter and the pilot had not donned his drysuit.

And one also had paraplegia, which can't have helped him escape.