SEP over water - do you? And if so how far will you go?
 

I've just returned to flying after a bit of a break and I'm looking for things to do - trips to undertake, qualifications to add etc to keep the passion alive, broaden my skill set and keep the accuracy up, rather than get stale flying local VFR trips.

A couple of trips I'm idly considering are a trip to the Isle of Man for the TT races this summer - to provide moral support to someone I know racing there, to nip down to Le Sarthe to watch the Le Mans classic, and to pop across to the Scillies to meet a chum who's sailing there.

All require an overwater leg. The Scillies is the shortest at about 30 miles, the IoM would be 40-45 and the cross channel from the SW is 100-120 miles.

I did a cross channel check ride years ago. I was nervous then about an overwater flight in a fixed undercarriage aircraft - if the donkey stops the ditching options are exceptionally limited. Now I'm older and allegedly wiser, it still doesn't fill me with joy.

And yet I suppose when I add night or IMC ratings my ditching options are going to be very limited, and any flying over mountainous terrain also leaves few options. And so far the noisy oily spinny bits have kept being noisy, oily and spinny... And the MTBF is pretty high with aero engines.

So I guess it's all in my head. Fear of sinking, trapped in an upturned cockpit or something. So what's a normal approach to over water flights in a SEP? Do you guys limit yourself to 'within gliding distance of land' or are you all grizzled ferry pilots with countless North Atlantic crossings under your belt? Or perhaps somewhere in between? How do you mitigate the risk when flying in any 'limited landing options' environment?

Hi Airbornestu,

I have done quite a few Channel crossings, but most of them were in the South East of England Lydd - Le Touquet was a really common route for me (partially because I am based out the south east, and partially because I have this fear that you're talking about).

The way I look at it is, I will fly as high as I can (within reason) in order to limit the unlikely event of having to ditch (by having greater glide distance). Or that should I have to ditch, I would endeavour to have as much time as I can to at least attempt an engine restart / change tanks / call mayday and find a big ship nearby to get them to pick me up (and maybe prepare a couple of margueritas for my arrival). When I cross the Channel by the Isle of Wight to over Cherbourg, I try to climb to 10,000' because I've calculated that my risks were substantially lower up high than they were down low. [probably overkill looking back although the cloud tops were around 9,500' so I guess it worked out pretty well!].

A friend of mine does the long crossings at 4 or 5000' and say "Well, that still gives me plenty of time to restart". He has done numerous crossings into IoM and over into Ireland from there too, although I understand that he climbs to 10k - 14k on a regular basis to do so.

I've never been the Isles of Scilly, but that's definitely on my list! Hopefully soon!

Good luck with the night & IMC ratings! They've boosted my confidence dramatically, I hope they will boost yours too!

The ability to glide to safety is critical, and that means height.
A VP prop is a big help here, if you pull the blue knob all the way out a 182 will glide a LOT farther than a 172. Be prepared, know the correct speed and settings for best glide range and be prepared to waste some time climbing over land to make sure that you will have enough height and some to spare by the time you get to the halfway point.

If the distance over water is longer hire a proper immersion suit and dinghy and get properly traind to use them. Always carry a good quality rescue beacon and get your mayday call in ASAP while you have the height to be in radio range of help.

Flying is all about risk management and in an SEP there are obviously risks flying over water.
You can minimise those risks by not flying over water on windy days where those pretty white bits 2000 feet below are 20 foot waves close to.
Fly as high as you can! Note the position of boats and ships and wind direction
The chances of a complete engine failure are small and more likely a loss of power so keep an eye on the engine gauges , fuel quantity and if you have carb heat check regularly.
Don't set off late in the day where should you go down there is a short time till darkness and search and rescue will have problems
Talk to someone and preferably be on radar
But it is risk management and some are prepared to take more risk than others
I don't like SEP at night and must admit admire the guts of those who do long ferry flights in SEP planes over the North Atlantic
Unless you stay within the UK you have to fly a water crossing and I have done in the past many times but its amazing how a normally smooth engine always sounds rough over water especially the mid part:E

There are irrational fears where we can talk you out of it and get you to look at things in a different way and there are rational fears. This is a rational one so all anyone can do is minimise the risk and take the chance how big a chance or how long a crossing is up to you

Or reduce it further by flying a Cirrus :ok:

Pace

I fly the channel once or twice a month in a SEP and would support everything that has been posted above plus:

Carry a GPS linked PLB such as a McMurdo Fast Find (on your body, not in your flight bag!) where you can get at and activate it easily.

Wear a life jacket: you won't have time to don it on your way down to a ditching.

Keep a life raft close to hand where you can get it out easily. When I'm single pilot, I keep mine on the passenger seat strapped in by the seat belt together with a water proof, buoyant, ditching bag containing my hand held radio as well as dry clothes and shoes.

Do a ditching course: it's a real eye opener!

When flying the crossing, I keep my No 2 GPS tuned to the nearest airport and monitor it so I'll know immediately the heading and distance and whether it's in glide range or not if the engine fails.

All that said: there's no greater probability of something going wrong over the sea than at any other time (although, as Pace has said: my engine also has a warped sense of humour, seems to know when it's over water, and tries to wind me up by making funny noises every time I fly the channel!).

I have crossed the Atlantic 6 times in a SEP.

I agree with the above, be sensible about it and it's a very good risk (at least the Channel, IOM etc), but these things are subjective.

It's up to you.

I though in most VP aircraft oil pressure was used to take the prop to the coarse position, with the springs taking it to full fine - if the engine fails won't your oil pressure disappear and thus the prop go fine regardless, or is the windmilling prop turning the engine going to produce enough pressure?

I will add as a scuba diving enthusiast that the sea is a very powerful unforgiving force! Close too you see that energy that power and have to respect it
At 2000 to 5000 feet cocooned in a nice warm invirinment it's unreal!
The shock of one minute being in that vertically distant environment and meeting the Cold sea at close quarters In a ditching must be immense !
Maybe knowing the sea at close quarters makes you more aware ? What do others who sail think ?
I have a friend who years ago was ferrying a Cessna SEP over the North Atlantic he had a fuel transfer problem and ended up with a stopped engine in IMC 200 miles from land
He spiralled down breaking cloud 500 feet ASL and above the only fishing boat in a 100 miles
He was picked up and had to help for the rest of the fishing trip before going back to port days later! How lucky was He ??

Pace

Avoid launching out over water with an aircraft that's just out of maintenance. I survived an engine failure through sheer luck and a modicum of skill.


I still fly over water, well beyond gliding distance to solid ground, but only in aircraft I have faith in.

I used to do it - IOM, cross channel, but that was when I was young and immortal. Later, I had a re-think and decided SEP over water isn't an acceptable risk. Why? Because one dictum I have stuck to in 30 odd years flying is 'always have an out'.

If the engine fails over land, your 'out' is a forced landing which should have a pretty good chance of turning out OK as long as you don't fly over miles of forest or somewhere else unlandable.

Over water, especially around UK, if the engine fails you are probably going to die. Especially in a Chipmunk (fixed gear, no space for a dingy etc). Even in a retractable with a dingy your chances are a bit better, but not that much.

So will the engine fail? Almost certainly not. But how lucky do you feel, punk? A piston engine is a mass of reciprocating and rotating parts all eager to part company with each other, with a thin film of pressurised oil preventing the whole thing seizing up. That they work at all is a marvel. I've had them fail and I know folk who've had quite a few fail. It does happen.

And when it does.... where's your 'out'?

19 solo single-engine Atlantic crossings. Got more sense now. Le Touquet or Alderney is as far as I'll go in a single these days.

SND

SND

19 crossings ? I have done them in the luxury of a jet high level and even then the expanse of ocean is huge. Often thought of the poor guys and girls flying SEP way below very slow.
with Piston failures I have had you have more guts than me :ok:

Pace

Yes, many times over the years, with caution, and preparation. Higher is possible, full floatation suit if the water is anything cooler than tropical, and a life jacket in any case.

Funny, when I was type trained in a Bell 206 helicopter on floats, the flight manual supplement for the floats actually said to avoid flight over land!

An elderly pilot back in the 70s ferried a Tomahawk from the USA to Manchester for The Manchester School of Flying(MSF)

I never got to speak to him but some people in here might have done.

I did do Manchester to Dublin Via IOM years back with P1FEL in a Cherokee and A.N Other following.The CFI waved us off with the encouraging words that engines don't know they are over water do they.

Never heard of 'automatic rough'?

A lot is psychological )) how many of you relax when you see a distant shoreline or even the line of cumulus which marks the shoreline before you see it
Way out of gliding range but still just the sight of that destination relaxes you
IOM always has a big blob of cloud marking it on even blue sky glorious days

Pace

The only time I flew a great distance (as a pax on a SEP) I thought the same thing as I was concerned about engine reliability.

If you are planing a trip over water do the maths first. If you take the short crossing, it is 18.25nm. What height do you plan, what is typical wind, what is your aircraft's glide performance. For my aircraft I am typically out of gliding range for 90sec. Do the same for the north sea and the numbers are not so good.

Do not assume you will be able to get into a dingy unless you have had specialist training. Tests done by Plymouth Uni showed that almost nobody without training will get in in open water. The tests were done using fit young students:) who were expecting to get wet, not your old overweight average PPL who will suffer temperature shock from a nice warm cockpit to UK sea temp.

I keep my crossings as short as possible and fly as high as I can.

Rod1

"Never heard of 'automatic rough'?"

Plenty of that on the golf course I play on.

Don't do it ! I won't cross Clapham Common pond.

That's what floatplanes go to when you fly them over land!;)

Have just landed the Maule after flying from Perth to Jersey , about 85 miles of the journey across the water, it feels good, sure there's the ass pucker factor but worth it.

On most long flights there are likely to be periods when there are no good forced landing options. Flying over water has an increased risk, but it's not disproportionately higher.

Most ditchings are survivable with the right equipment and preparation assuming rescue comes in a reasonable time.

The up-side is that you are often flying in less crowded airspace and in smoother flying conditions with no hills, masts or other obstacles. Your journey may well be shorter and cheaper too.

Do your own risk assessment, but you may find that it's not such a bad option.

What Pace said. ...
I fly the cub Cherbourg IOW with a PLB and a life jacket. Couple of round trips per year. I prefer that to miles of pine forest. YMMV

G-WAVY?????
 

That famous water landing in the motor glider...on the way back from the Isles of Scilly, engine failed, so they turned back toward Scilly, but couldn't quite glide far enough, so arrived in the water, after giving a Mayday on the radio. They then climbed out onto the wings. The motor glider floated very nicely.
THEY DIDN'T EVEN GET WET! A rescue boat took them on board, and then tied a line round the prop to tow the Grob back to the beach, but when they took up the strain, the aircraft dived for the bottom! They cut the rope, and it surfaced again, so they tied the line to the tail of the aircraft, and in that configuration it towed back nicely to the beach.

The German manufacturer was pleased to hear about the aircraft's seaworthy behavior, but was unhappy that the engine failed to keep running. Nonetheless it was washed and greased and lovingly restored, and I believe is still flying today.

I have posted on this subject before, but some may not have heard. Both Jonzarno and Pace are right. Engines do play psychological mind games over water, but as always, it's purely all in the head. I've done thousands of miles in 30 years over water, incident free, until one day in 2009 minutes after departing Lydd in the cruising climb I suddenly developed much reduced manifold pressure. It all went down hill after changing tanks with the use of the mechanical pump. The PA 32 glides like a brick. It all happens very fast. Thankfully it does, but the art is getting right first time. You get one chance at this.
I did nothing different that day than was what was taught to me 25 years previously.
If you are in a retractable, your surviving percentages increase from what I have read statistically. Fortunately, I was. Flying over water is awesome, don't not do it because your're scared. If my next one happens in another 25 years, I will be be ready for it, as I each time I cruise out from the coastline. Good luck and enjoy.

This is worth reading: Ditching Myths Torpedoed - equipped.com

Ditching in a fixed gear aircraft in the English Channel is probably not going to kill you in itself.

Protect yourself in the water and get quickly located are things to plan sensibly for, in the event a ditching occurs - so immersion suit (or dinghy) and GPS PLB as a minimum.

Plus a considered Mayday call ("I'm ditching. Here I am...") on the way down from your high-as-possible transit altitude will help a lot. As will landing close to a vessel, with which height and time will help find - I'm told by the RNLI that a yacht or ideally ferry (Manoeuvrable: Lots of eyes on board) is far better than a tanker or freight carrier.

Simply thinking "It's a SEP with fixed gear: I'm definitely dead if the engine stops" is not only demonstrably wrong, but fatalistic and could well guarantee a bad outcome if that's your view.

Pace, how does the SEP being a Cirrus help at all? It may actually hinder, given now no crash attenuation under the chute due to a crushing undercarriage.

Mary: It was/is G-WAVE.

Not Pace, but that isn't right. There have been several (I think six) successful chute pulls over water and no serious injuries. Here's just one example:



This was a trans-Pacific ferry flight on which a valve on one of the ferry tanks jammed. As you can see, the pilot was unharmed.

Jonzarno

That Cirrus plopped down into the Ocean very gently and this is why I mentioned the Cirrus for regular sea crossings

The chances of getting a calm sea especially around the UK are slim and coming down into a heavy swell with a lot of forward motion would be like hitting a brick wall.

In that situation I would take the relatively vertical profile of the Cirrus and use the chute

Thanks for putting up that video

Pace

I think over the sea is one place I would rather use the chute than try to "land" it, not sure I want to fly Cirrus though - seem to be far too many engine failures!!

This is why I went to a twin as soon as I could. Far too many nasty places below us for singles. Much greater fear for me in a single is the Amazonas or thick forests. That's a place they'll never find you.

And did you see how quickly the aircraft got dragged under the water, if the chute had turned the other way on touch down it would have dragged the aircraft with water flooding into the cabin and he would have drowned.

Quote
An elderly pilot back in the 70s ferried a Tomahawk from the USA to Manchester for The Manchester School of Flying(MSF)

Interesting. I got my PPL(A) flying Tomahawks at Manchester School of Flying. When you say "elderly" do you mean it was the CFI? Or do you have a name? Those little planes barely had enough fuel to do a qualifying cross country!

That pilot very sensibly had jammed the door open ! How well you do will depend to a certain extent on how slow your plane flies
We all know how much damage a car will do in a 30 mph head on crash! A lot
Those pretty white caps from 3000 feet will turn into brick walls of water close too
Anything which reduces your horizontal motion will improve your odds
On faster aircraft even into wind will still have a serious impact with a wall of moving water
Hence with the Cirrus although it has horizontal movement with the wind in heavy seas it is a better option to use the chute

Pace

Pace;

I'm not quite so heroic. All bar one were in Cessna 208's, brand new going to Europe/Africa.

I went swimming in the North Sea before that after everything went wrong in a helicopter. I have never been so cold/scared/petrified in my life:{

SND

SND

You are still braver than me :ok: having flown that route high level and high speed a number of times it still seemed a massive expanse of water to cover. Not even warm water but freezing water and usually rough.
i know the sea at close quarters too well )

Turbo prop single maybe but piston single ? You have guts ;)

One occasion I was asked to do the crossing in a Cessna 340 which had experienced engine problems up to Canada the other pilot walked out.

This aircraft was fitted with a large ferry tank which you had to crawl over to get to the pilot seats on your stomach and then drop down.

it was massively over gross weight with fuel in the tank and I realised that failure of the bad engine would mean no more than a stretched glide into the sea.

The remaining pilot filled the ferry tank when we didn't even need it to save money on fuel cost after we discussed it and agreed not to fuel it and I flatly refused to go unless he emptied it again.

Luckily that wreck of a 340 was grounded by an inspector who was going through the area at the time for other reasons so neither of us got to fly it back

Strangely when it was ferried to India a while later it ended up at the bottom of a lake 20 miles from destination so a really jinxed aircraft. The indian pilot who moved it to its home airfield 30 nm further on after the ferry turned the fuel off not knowing how to fly the thing

Pace

The new ones are the worst for failures, out of the 56 I did around 30 were in singles both turbine and piston, out of the singles 10 were new from the factory, out of the 10 new ones 9 had some kind of major event going across the atlantic :uhoh:

Interesting experience there, ATC.

I have flown 60 SEPs transatlantic, mostly new from factory. On my ferries of new aircraft I almost always got problems, if any, before reaching the coast. New aircraft = double-edged sword ! Trim runaway once, and a couple of rough-running episodes are all that I can recall actually over the ocean, plus getting hit by lightning once.

Packed it in 5 years ago; reckoned I had got away with it long enough. Am 70 now and I will not be repeating it. Glad I did it though. But too many good guys out there, much younger, experienced too, finally did not make it …

In the Iron Curtain days, a guy surreptitiously built a Druine Turbulent, escaped to the West, then crossed the Atlantic in it. Volkswagen engine.

Diesel? :O