Frans, I like the single person life raft, although if flying with a
passenger it would be psychologically good to be in the same boat as your
mate. Having flown a lot over water I have given the matter of ditching a
fair bit of thought. With my mono my plan is to have max flap + wheel down
to give minimum approach speed (water being awfully hard at speed) but I
would leave the gear unlocked so that the wheel hitting the water would
retract itself (I guess), and limit the tendency to trip over the wheel and
bury the nose. There is good info on ditching at:
www.equipped.org/ditchingmyths.htm together with useful leads. It seems most
planes float plenty long enough to get out. If you compare the wing volume
with a surf board (capable of supporting >200lbs), I am pretty certain that
a classic would float for ever, and that an XS would float for a long time
before sufficient water found its way into the wings.
Hope it doesn't happen, but good for you for working out the 'what
ifs'! Regards, David Joyce, G-XSDJ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Frans Veldman" <frans@privatepilots.nl>
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 11:15 AM
Subject: Europa-List: Ditching checklist
>
> Has anyone worked out a checklist for the unfortunate case one has to
> ditch?
>
> I'm preparing one, but don't want to re-invent the wheel.
>
> After reading some about this subject, my thinking is that one should
> not use more than 10 degrees of flaps, to avoid the nose becoming too
> low, and to avoid a wing digging in if the extended flap gets torn off
> during the initial contact with water.
>
> Another thing that crossed my mind is that it might be beneficial to
> open the doors before touchdown. It is my understanding that they will
> depart the airplane, which is probably a good thing in that situation,
> anticipating the possibility that the airplane might flip over and one
> has to evacuate the inverted airplane.
>
> Has anyone done the math whether the wings and foam area's of an Europa
> are sufficient to keep it floating?
>
> Other Europa specific things to think about?
>
> As far as I know no Europa has ever been ditched. Is that right?
>
> I came accross these liferafts:
> http://www.switlik.com/aviation-catalog-isplr-liferaft.html
>
> The interesting thing about these personal liferafts is that they are so
> small that you can wear them as a belt during flight. And with 5.7 lbs
> they are very light. Two of these is not more expensive that one regular
> multi-person raft, and appears to be more suitable for our small Europa's.
>
> Any comments on these?
>
> Frans
>
> P.S. I appreciate that some folks choose not to fly over water. Mind you
> though that in the Netherlands this would severely restrict ones
> travels, so avoiding water is not an option.
>
>
>
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