PPL Flight over Water
 

Do I need endorsement? Are there any requirements? Does it vary from club to club what experience you need to fly over water?

Cheers!

No legal requirements.

Club requirements could be whatever the club requires... unlikely though.

Practically:

- Carry a life raft

- If flying on hazy days, there may be no horizon so be able to instrument-fly and use a GPS for nav

- Don't run out of fuel :)

Go as high as you can.

Water!
 

The aeroplane will never know so if your peace of mind is important wear a lifejacket and carry a PLB Personal Locator Beacon with GPS included so that search and rescue will find you - if you want to stay alive at this time of year in the water wear an immersion suit and if you are single engine fly the shortest route at a higher speed than normal, some aircraft have a stated flight over water speed. A smoke cannister would help if you are going to have to ditch.

Best plan is don't tell the aeroplane!!

CARs
 

Canadian Air Regulations state that you must fly within 100NM or a distance covered in 30 minutes of flight at the cruising speed filed in the flight plan (whichever is lesser) of a safe landing area unless a life raft is carried on board. If you're not carrying a life raft, I believe the regulations require you to maintain flight at an altitude and distance so that in the event of an engine failure you are able to glide to a safe landing area.

There are (UK) legal requirements in schedule 4.

Out of gliding distance of a suitable forced landing site; you must have lifejackets.

More than 10 mins normal cruise from land; carry an ELT or PLB

A typical PPL UK water crossing would be the English Channel. The shortest crossing is Dover - Calais 20NM, but both Eastbourne - Le Touquet and IOW - Cherbourg approx 50NM are examples of other popular crossings. Most UK pilots I know of do those crossings with a life west only.

Before I was allowed to cross the Channel I had to do a "Channel Checkout", a requirement on our group aircraft and most club aircrafts I know about. In our group it forms part of the insurence requirements. As already has been mentioned; you might find yourself in imc like conditions on a clear day.

If you are only flying over water for a couple of channel crossings every summer I wouldn't worry about investing in anything else than a life west and a PLB. I'm a firm believer in mathematical statistics :hmm:

this is not a speed that you should fly over water at, it is the speed at which the regulations use for calculating the 30 minute distance. Beyond 30 minutes a different level of survival equipment needs to be carried for public transport multi engine operations.

don't be concerned that you must fly a given number of knots faster/slower simply because you are over water.

“A typical PPL UK water crossing would be the English Channel. The shortest crossing is Dover - Calais 20NM,”

The shortest crossing is actually 18nm.

Important question – which bit of water are you considering? Wick to Iceland is a very different issue to a channel crossing. In my aircraft on a typical channel run I am only out of gliding range for 90sec, which is very low risk.

Rod1

All depends
 

For me personally, I cross water with life jacket on, life raft in tow. Would cross without plb but would obviously take one if available. I've nit do e this for a year and a half though so requirements may have changed.

Lydd to LeTouquet is a very busy shipping channel and you'll see lots of boats that you can ditch close to easily enough.

I crossed Angelsey to Newtownards and the Irish sea was far more Spartan, I really wouldn't want to ditch there.

Did some flying out if Glasgow and there was tangible paranoia over water crossings compared with down south. Makes sense, survival rates in the cold Scotish waters, even in summer, must be in minutes without an immersion suit.

That's reasonable, although my approach is to forget the life jacket and carry a raft 100% of the time; along with a bag of other emergency stuff it occupies the 4th seat.

Crossing the channel one would try to ditch next to a boat but one would be dead pretty fast just wearing a jacket.

I don't know if the survival stats support this view. Those who died aren't talking (and the bodies/aircraft are not always recovered) and too few people carry a raft to contribute useful data.

It seems that most people that go down have run out of fuel. Occassionally, I bet, it happens because they are leaving the UK with nearly empty tanks so they can buy cheap fuel in Jersey, which is daft because they would have got a similar benefit by leaving the UK with full tanks and claiming the duty drawback. Maybe some are in clubs which make the drawback benefit difficult, and there is the other side to that too which is that if you let one member pocket the whole drawback on fuel not wholly purchased by him then you will get members taking advantage of this and repeatedly flying s. coast to Le Touquet and getting free fuel.

If hiring a club aircraft you may well need a cross channel check out with an instructor.

Otherwise the rules are as per schedule 4 quoted above.

I fly regularly to the Channel Islands and France and all passengers wear life jackets, I carry a PLB strapped to my life jacket and a raft is available.

I did an IMCR soon after my PPL with cross channel in mind as grey days make it very hard to tell sea and sky apart and it's easy to become disorientated.

Scottish dimension
 

The recorded ditchings of light aircraft in the Scottish waters are few, and as pointed out previously, generally running out of fuel, would appear to be a major cause:\A number of ferry flights, Atlantic crossing, appear to have come a cropper, however, again the planning of these events appears very suspect.SEP, Atlantic ferry, in December:ugh:A few of those crashed in the mountains before they reached the coast.

I have no issue, other than a lot of people telling me it was very dangerous:oh:to go over water.I carry life jackets, ELT, and for Med crossings, a liferaft, standard stuff really.

My aeroplane does not know it is over water, only me. I had one guy tell me that increased humidity, water vapour, ruins the engine and it may quit:E

Every time I coast out I remember that comment, I feel abused:O

This has been rehearsed several times both here and on the Flyer forums, but I'm really very uncomfortable with suggesting to anybody that carrying a life raft ever removes the need for lifejackets.

Even if everything goes right for you and your pax, getting into a liferaft can be exhausting - and that's without the raft inflating inverted, or the water being especially cold etc. Without a lifejacket to provide bouyancy, you may well never make it.

A lifejacket is the absolute minimum in my opinion, and professional survival trainers and SAR personnel would appear to agree.

A passport & some Euros are high on the list of requirements.

Don't carry a lifejacket. Wear it.
And survival time in water around Scotland will vary according to the clothes you are wearing, and your personal characteristics.

In NZ its life jackets worn for all in A/C if more than 10NM over water, if greater than 50NM its life jackets and a life raft big enough for each POB.
AND i think a PLB other than the A/C ELT

Ditching
 

Remember it takes ships miles to stop and it would be unlikely they would be able to in some cases even if you were seen. A leisure craft might be more help e.g. a yacht.

I dont mean to be pedantic FlyingKiwi but you are all but correct. Life jacket worn (and life rafts carried) if exceeding 10Nm beyond gliding distance from shore if its a commercial operation. Private ops you dont have to wear a life jacket at all but it must be carried (one for each POB) if you are beyond 50Nm from shore. Private ops/single engine beyond 100Nm require liferafts (or beyond 200Nm if multi engine)

Straight line stopping distance is a red herring to some extent - large vessels can undertake a "Williamson Turn" (Google it) so could get back to the ditching point in reasonable time if you are spotted.

However, it is far from certain you will be spotted unless the vessel has been alerted of an imminent aircraft ditching by the coastguard - reduced manning levels means that the OOW is typically the sole lookout during daylight hours :(