Truly maddening

[7ECA]

I don't think that's entirely true. Ditchings can be eminently survivable, and there's good evidence to back that up. Especially if the water's warm enough and you have life preservers.

I'd be willing to say that a ditching could be survivable in a retractable gear aircraft. On the other hand, the standard training aircraft, be it a 152 or a 172 with fixed landing gear, is going to nose over when the gear contacts the water, more than likely resulting in anyone in the front seats getting their skull cracked.

A 172s best glide speed is 60-65 knots, so roughly 120-130KPH, impacting the water, even in a fairly controlled manner, is going to be very ugly.

As for life preservers, what good will they do, when you are unconscious? And how many people carry them, when they have no intention of an overwater flight?

[photofly]

On the other hand, the standard training aircraft, be it a 152 or a 172 with fixed landing gear, is going to nose over when the gear contacts the water, more than likely resulting in anyone in the front seats getting their skull cracked.

It's not something I've tried, obviously, but I don't think a nose-over in a fixed gear aircraft is either inevitable or, with tight seat-belts and shoulder-harnesses, remotely injurious. Certainly that's not the message from the ditching training course I've done.

Who carries a life-preserver? Well, me, for a start. Why wouldn't you?

[7ECA]

It's not something I've tried, obviously, but I don't think a nose-over is either inevitable or, with tight seat-belts and shoulder-harnesses, remotely injurious. Certainly that's not the message from the ditching training course I've done.

Who carries a life-preserver? Well, me, for a start. Why wouldn't you?

Certainly isn't something I've tried, and I'm not looking to give it a try either. Seems to me that a good example of what happens when landing gear meets water would be an amphibious float plane, making a gear down landing. Which always results in a rather violent nose over.

As for shoulder harnesses, this isn't a car, there just tensioned down, and when you hit, I can imagine that you are going to get some pretty significant whiplash, assuming that the shoulder harness mounting hardware doesn't fail. The same could be said for the seat mounts/rails, if they fail under the impact load, you are in trouble. A lot of variables at play, as you said, but if given my choice of a forced landing on land, versus water, I'm going for the land damn near every time.

As for life preservers, I only carry them when on a flight over water for an extended period of time (such as CZBB to CYYJ), even though I plan to be at an altitude that would hopefully allow for a gliding approach to land.

[photofly]

A water landing is a lot softer than an impact on hard ground, so I don't imagine seat rails to be over-stressed.

And an amphib has wheels way further below the cg than a land plane, so a lot more tendency to rotate forward when the wheels touch water and achieve a lot more nose down attitude before the nose goes in and stops the rotation. So I imagine a significant difference in the behaviour.

I spent a few hours recently in a light single flying over barren rocky Nunavut, and I decided that given the choice between a forced landing onto the steep, jagged, peaky and very hard rocks and a ditching in a river or lake of which there were plenty, I'd take the water every time. I actually figured the ocean was a better place to go down than most of Northern Canada.

[CpnCrunch]

I'd be willing to say that a ditching could be survivable in a retractable gear aircraft. On the other hand, the standard training aircraft, be it a 152 or a 172 with fixed landing gear, is going to nose over when the gear contacts the water, more than likely resulting in anyone in the front seats getting their skull cracked.

While that is what most pilots believe and it seems logical, it isn't actually true. Fixed gear planes actually fare better for ditching:

http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All- ... cientpilot

[GyvAir]

Of course everybody would take the beach over the surf over the deep swells, all else being equal, both for the welfare of the passengers and the aircraft.

A little video evidence of successful fixed tricycle gear ditchings:

Successful ditching of similar aircraft:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2iOGcMvq4Q

C150 surf landing aftermath
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roKkaESkKNc

Then there was the C208 that ditched in Hawaii a couple years back and stayed upright.

This glider looks like it was designed for ditching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QphwzcpTESw

[7ECA]

Well, I stand corrected, I guess. But, I'd still prefer to avoid water landings if able to pick out a suitable spot on land.

[nottellin]

Here is another close call that happened yesterday,

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/small-plane ... een-worse/