Yes. I have watched these on YouTube, although they seem to take a while? One took 45 minutes to cross.
Thank You. I am in my 20’s and he is 60+. But yes absolutely, there would be no discussion, we would need to be watching for clouds/disturbances and for other aircraft.

Given the risks involved we wouldn’t be best served sitting chatting.
I am a British citizen and discussed divergence would only be agriculture etc not aviation.

We certainly don’t intend on taking anything longer than 20 miles over water. We are not experienced in this, so we would want to take as little risk as possible.

Do your planning, know your numbers find your best glide speed and rate of descent at that speed. All should be in the poh and be practised !

Let’s assume for illustration 60knots and 500 feet per minute.

so if engine cuts you have a glider

if you are at 10,000 feet as you mention that gives you 20 minutes before your feet are wet (10,000/500). It will be less than that due to prop drag but for illustration I’ll leave it at 20

in 20 minutes at 60 knots you’ll travel 20 nautical miles. (Airspeed not groundspeed, I’ll let you do the headwind/tailwind calculations) As the crossing is - your number - 28 (statute/nautical ?)miles the furthest you are from land is 14 miles.

All of which concludes that the risk of getting wet as a result of engine failure is mathematically non existent at 10,000 feet

still leaves in flight fire, structural problems causing ‘immediate’ descent etc as risks

Personally I wouldn’t bother going as high as 10,000 feet, work the algebra backwards and you can calculate your personal minimum safe height, and how many miles in the middle you are exposed at.

I followed that advice, understood why on the first time I did it and pass it on whenever I can !

Safe flight

what? Justify what you are saying.

Thank you. The distance to Mainland Scotland is 21 Statute miles from outside Larne, where did I say 28? (I know that Kintyre is 12 miles but that would involve a lot of island hopping to get to the true mainland)

Where are you getting the 60 Knots figure from? If we were cruising along at 150 knots and had an engine failure would this not be a starting point?

Weather on that crossing is my main concern. I know from experience that it is difficult to get a time with decent weather over the North Channel.

It’s not rare for there to be fog in the North Channel in a High Pressure situation. In fact, often it is the case where you can see the Mull of Kintyre from our NE coast on a cloudy day, but not on a sunny, calm day. So clear conditions are rare.

Perhaps as a trial run we could try going out 5-10 miles and turning around just to see what the conditions are like and what we would be setting ourselves in for.

I’m not going to provide the type of plane as my fathers name and address appears when the registration is put in and I would rather keep that private thanks.

I don’t want to be crucified by the people on this forum either, you’ve given me enough digs at this stage.

The over water distance is insignificant if you've prepared properly. Flying over mountains or desert can be at least as risky if you haven't taken appropriate precautions.

The most important factor is your ability to make good decisions regarding the weather on the day.

Just give us the type, not the registration. The interest is in which 2 seater you think flies that fast. It’s odd that your father is a new pilot, but is flying a very fast aircraft.

I presume your father understands best glide speed if he has a license, as you do not have a license, I understand why you find the concept confusing above.

What is REALLY odd is why your pilot father doesn’t explain the concept to you, understand what controlled airspace is, or know about SEP operations.

The funny thing is, if you just asked real questions, you’d get real answers from experienced pilots, it sounds like you’ve made something up though.

Now, back to the aircraft, tell us which mk Spitfire it is, because I’d say it’s less risk in an original TR9 if that’s what you have.

It’s a RV7. :rolleyes:

Now you’re not getting anything else out of me.

i got the 60 knots (best glide speed) and the 500 fpm rate of descent from nowhere, hence the ‘assume’. Both will come from the pilot operating manual which we are taught to look in, your father will have and which I don’t.

if your engine fails at 150 knots you’re right that is the starting point, but the aircraft won’t keep moving at that speed without a prop turning - think about a car when the engine stops. The difference with a plane is that a pilot can keep it moving forwards using gravity-trading height for speed.

(Very simply Gravity wants the plane to fall from the sky, the wings give lift to counteract that. Drag (air friction) wants the plane to stop moving forwards and there’s no longer an engine to overcome drag. If the plane isn’t moving through the air the wings stop producing lift. So you angle the plane downwards, the airspeed created by the plane ‘falling’ gives lift which means you keep flying forwards but downwards. The pilot holds the plane at the angle that returns best glide speed)

Somebody has done the sums for you in stating best glide speed which is the optimum speed to fly at without the engine working. It’s different for every model of plane and a pilot should know these numbers before taking off so that in a situation they instantly know what to fly at.

Sorry about the 28 mile reference, if the distance is only 21 then the minimum height can be lower.

incidentally, did you really mean that you’ve never been more than 30 miles from base ? At 150 mph cruise you cover 2.5 miles per minute so that makes your longest flight has been 12 minutes long ?

I’m sure your father knows all this, he will have studied it in getting his licence which I’m guessing wasn’t all that long ago.

My father has flown further, though not with myself. Obviously it’s a capable plane.