If you punch in 7700 into the transponder it will light up radar sets across the south (and North of France).

All good advice from many. Personally I don't have an issue with flying over water in a single because like has already been said in terms of surviving the ditching the stats are on one's side. With a suit and raft (which is what I carry in the winter) if one gets a radio message out with position I feel confident a ditching should turn out OK. The aircraft has an ELT (although a PLB is probably better for water use) and there are some flares in the life raft pack.

Single door aircraft make me rather nervous though I have to say...

What outstanding advice and info. Thank you all very much, especially Dublin pilot.

I agree that it is ulitimately my decision, and should make that decision on whether I'm comfortable with the risk - I've always been happy with that notion. But having more information aids your decision process, and therefore what you're comfortable with.

Thanks again.

Englishal
 

I take your point about setting 7700 but the fix is only as good as the UHF range between radar head and transponder, when the transponder is only 30 feet above the water that is not very far.

A radial and distance from a GPS transmitted from 30 feet and relayed from an airliner at FL370 can be put into an FMC (it takes eight FMC key strokes to get a direct track to a R/D position) and put a rescue helicopter within 100M of the ditching site.

The whole idea is to get the rescue helicopter to the crash site ASAP and before you die in the cold water, should you be unfortunate not to get into your liferaft.

A GPS-equipped beacon transmits the lat/long but not AFAIK on the audio channel. It would be great if it did send it as audio (synthesised voice) on the 121.50 channel. The lat/long gets transmitted (on the 406MHz) once a minute to the satellite, which then relays it to the international S&R network.

This is why, if you ditch, having something which gives you a human-readable GPS position is a good idea. It can be a £50 GPS from a camping shop, but then you need a handheld radio as well (with which to call up a nearby aircraft - typically an airliner on 121.50). Or it can be a satellite phone, all of which contain a GPS and all of them are capable of sending somebody an SMS with the position, with just a few button presses. A pity that Falmouth have no means of receiving these messages (I did speak to them about it) :) All they would need to do is buy a mobile phone and publish the number. I have a few peoples' mobile numbers programmed in my satphone. But a satphone is not a good long term solution because - unless you are on a contract and keep paying £££££ like all the kids with their £35/month Iphones - any prepayment expires pretty fast, so you have to keep an eye on it.

The SPOT satellite locator beacons are pretty good for sending email/SMS with GPS position. In emergency mode it keeps sending every few seconds and also sends the position to some central control room which then passes it onto the MCA. You can program the message with your details (A/C reg / name / phone etc...) so this is also included so straight away they would know what aeroplane to look out for.

Plus people can track your flights on the web with a position sent every few minutes. No huge satellite phone charges and does not rely on GSM so works pretty much everywhere.

Not ideal on its own, but combined with a PLB could be pretty useful.

All very good advice, which ever camp you are in about shortest / most direct!

I echo response re always wear life jacket - no point having it if not worn on every flight over water! (OK, maybe not Biggin to Southend over the Thames!)

If you always avoid the long trips over water, and especially a climb over water things like leaving Jersey to fly direct to Southampton is never going to happen.

The other option for a trip into France then on to Spain is to break it up into decent legs and you may find a route via Folkestone to Cap Gris Nez then on to Tours, then down to Perpignon, then on into Spain. Long legs but quite feasible in a PA-28. But this was from Biggin, so from the midlands you may want to route west of London then due south but then longer leg over water. But then you could aim for Rennes, and then on south. Beziers did not have customs so we went to Perpginon, then direct Palma on one trip, another we did Sabadell (near Barcelona) then onto Ibiza. to get to the Balarics you are also looking at trips over water, and there are not as many ships in the med as the channel!

Overall; if you are planning on doing this sort of proper touring, which is great fun and quite easy, then the distances and legs involved are each of a few hours each anyway, so a 20 minute flight over water is probably the least of your worries. Being prepared mentally if the worst happens is of course vital,.

Have fun, enjoy, and report back!

I don't think I'd leave it that long - that'd be many minutes after the fan stopped! - to find the six or seven seconds it takes to dial up 7700.

Gurtrude
 

You miss my point the transponder should go to 7700 as soon as the problem starts and this will chances to alert ATC but it will not give a radar fix on the actual ditching position, the fix that ATC will have as the aircraft goes below radar cover is likely to be greater than a mile from the actual ditching position.

The advantage of a GPS based R/D position report is that the last report can be broadcast just as the aircraft is about to hit the water, this way anyone monitoring 125.5 can relay the most accurate fix to ATC. with any luck on a normal day across the channel any number of pilots could punch the numbers into the GPS and be overhead very quickly, this gives the best chance of spotting a person in the water and helping the SAR assets who can use the same fix to get directly to the crash site.

If a person fails to get into a liferaft and has not got a PLB them being spotted by the Mk1 eyeball are very slim and death by exposure is likely within2 hours in the summer and and about 15-20 min in the winter so speed is essential, the whole idea is to try to take the search out of search and rescue.