Having been involved in many over water searches for downed aircraft I have
found that civilian pilots are not properly equipped as a general rule. If
it is not on your person when you go down you may be "SOL". Having found a
UH-1H that went down, the one thing that remained in the area and was the
easiest to spot from 500AGL was sea dye. It was amazing how easy it was to
find the military survivors when they used dye. It was a green dye and
spread out and covered an area almost the size of a football (US) field in a
matter of 20 minutes after they went down. Once I found the dye it then
still took a minute or so to locate the crew in their 10 man raft. Much
easier to see the dye than the raft, but the dye is what lead me to them.
BTW Sun N Fun was great
Steve
N42AH
Still for Sale
www.stephenscott.com/Europa
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-europa-list-server@matronics.com
[mailto:owner-europa-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of Carl Pattinson
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2007 08:48
Subject: Re: Europa-List: Sea Survival Equipment
--> <carl@flyers.freeserve.co.uk>
Jos Okhuijsen - said
> I've been on SAR training missions searching for an elt, and it's not
> as easy as it's supposed to be.
Thats why I raised the point about using smoke or sea dye. I know nothing
whatsoever about ELT technology but I figured it would only give a general
location as to where the ELT is located - ie it isnt direction sensitive. My
guess an ELT will only guide the search helicopter or vessel to within a
mile or two of the target and then its down to the Mk1 eyeball.
Assuming there is time to make a mayday call that alone should be sufficient
to guide search and rescue to within a couple of miles but there is no
guarantee you could make that call in an emergency or accurately give your
location - I must see if there is a button on my Garmin which will display
the GPS coordinates.
Smoke or dye makes it much quicker to locate a downed craft as there may
well be other small vessels in the search area and the SAR would need to
elimnate these as possible targets.
As to immersion suits I am not sure these are any lighter than carrying a
raft (Transair sells a raft which is 12kg) - maybe someone makes a
lightweight version. I personally feel that a bulky survival suit would be
somewhat impractical for flying. Purely from a weight point of view a diving
wet suit would afford a considerable improvement in survivability.
----- Original Message -----
From: "josok" <josok-e@ukolo.fi>
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2007 12:54 PM
Subject: Re: Europa-List: Sea Survival Equipment
>
> Why not use survival suites, as carried by oil platform personnel on
> helicopter rides? These will keep you alive in any water for more then 24
> hrs. I've seen those in Norway, in a shop supplying material for
> fisherman. The price, weight and bulkiness were way lower then i expected
> them to be. Maybe our Norwegian friends can supply some more details? And
> instead of an elt, i would go for a combination of elt and gps equipped
> PLB. I've been on SAR training missions searching for an elt, and it's not
> as easy as it's supposed to be. As for the legal requirements: My first
> objective would be to increase the chance of survival. Second comes the
> legality :-)
>
> Regards,
>
> Jos Okhuijsen
>
>
> Visit - www.EuropaOwners.org
>
>
>
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