It’s possible that rule should extend into your day-to-day life as well. Most GA planes take at least 1000ft to recover from a spin even in the most expert hands, so a spin in the circuit is almost inevitably fatal. Along the Channel coast of the UK around half is built up and large swathes have high cliffs or woods. When Gasco published an article on Ditching in 2010 restating the ‘50% Die before rescue’ dictum, I was moved to write asking whether the author had any evidence at all for this assertion. The points I would make about directional control are exactly those I have already made above: good pressure on both pedals, control by moderate pressure changes, never brake unless travelling in a straight line. www.equippedtosurvive.com/ditchingmyths.htm. With the present-day and future-day potentials in mind, let’s have a quick look at four designs that warrant closer examination.

Mortality rate between October and March at 13.3% was somewhat higher than in the warmer months (8.%), but again this was not statistically significant.

Although I could be said to be temporarily the world’s expert on the risk of ditching a UK registered aircraft (simply because it seems that no-one else has bothered to look at the data!! Kit 402, work began 1 Jan 1999, having retired the night before. So my suggestions for you not joining the club are: The Europa has proved to be the perfect touring plane for me, and I have derived immense satisfaction from the many Europa Club trips I have been on round Europe, so it was a pleasure to become Trips Coordinator and look after future trips. That just leaves a 78 year old pilot who ditched his PA 28 near a boat in the Channel Islands, pushed his wife out, followed by the dinghy, but then tragically sank with the plane before managing to get himself out. When my wife and I left our summer cottage in Maine to go in search of Miller’s Field, we had no idea what we would find. Learned to fly on Chipmunks at Elstree and continued with the Air Squadron. This is likely to be aggravated by increased muscular tension, which inevitably accompanies severe stress, tending to increase back pressure on the controls, and also probably by the plane still being trimmed to a nose up attitude. My thesis is that there are three main ways in which you can equip yourself to avoid following this fatal sequence: Like most GA pilots I have a stall warner, in fact the Europa standard one, which squeaks in the head rest behind me. The same risk of course is there for power off approaches (wind shear or some other aspect of Sod’s Law!).

The Europa mono-wheel is absolutely, definitely, certainly not a good first aircraft purchase, unless the pilot is skilled on tailwheel types and ideally should also have experience on gliders (similar undercarriage). your speed decays too much and whilst checking restart procedures! The first essential move in avoiding becoming a statistic is to accept that it could happen to you. Have a good look around and decide whether the shore, a ship or an oil platform are in range and decide where to land.

Willing to discuss the safety aspects of any Europa accident or incident, actual or potential, and where appropriate to take action through the LAA to develop and maintain safe operating procedures as well as the technical aspects of airworthiness. This unsatisfactory correspondence led me to ask the CAA for details of small UK register aircraft ditchings, and to my surprise and delight, they came up with full summaries of all the UK Reportable Accidents of aircraft under 2730kg involving ditching between 1990 and 2011.

Braking will certainly cause a ground loop. If alone in the ocean, circle and land as close as possible to the last position given in your Mayday, unless you have significant height, in which case glide towards the likely direction of help. For a builder, this method allows a quick and simple build of an airframe that is square and true. Company officials say they are planning on building 5.5 per month for 2019, or 66 aircraft. It is not good enough to have one somewhere and put it on if things go pear shaped. The FAA already permits this, and nearly everyone agrees the practice results in better-built aircraft. Did you know you can renew your CFI certificate without a flight instructor refresher course? The Czech builder manufactures a tricycle gear model, a taildragger, and the RG model with retractable gear. Get the PLB working, and if not close by a ship, get the hood up and take any other measures that your kit allows you. Is 800 ft enough to turn around from? Psychological studies have shown that the brain (even a woman’s!) JMB Aircraft, run by two Belgium brothers, is the production company of the VL3, a plane designed by Vanessa Air and produced in the past by Aveko. Tarragon also follows the others in extensive use of computer-aided design and carbon fiber materials. So the message here is: Be certain of your best glide angle and convert this into an easy formula – for instance 1 in 12 is the equivalent of 2 miles per thousand feet. This is now a CAA requirement if going more than 10mins at normal cruise speed from land, but it is also just as obviously common sense as a life jacket. Gliders of course have the same sort of arrangement of main wheel in front of C of G but their tail wheels are invariably fixed and usually on a long arm so offering considerable directional stability. More probable is that you are out of effective range for your radio. Many hours of flying models in my youth! A row of dials which need looking at every 15 mins is a mistake, quite apart from weighing a lot. These are clean-sheet new creations that can hit 200 mph on 100 horsepower, priced at a fraction of the best selling general aviation aircraft. Seeking maximum performance, however, Tarragon elected tandem, but achieved this in the same highly-finished form common in many European designs. Think about that. Should the engine go quiet at a lower height or should there be reasonable landing options ahead, what speed do you adopt? Do meaningful practice of dealing with all forms of emergency situations. In any case it is fair to say that there were no UK deaths in 22 years attributable to the plane inverting. I suggest that these sorts of flights shouldn’t just serve to boost that feel good factor but should be used regularly to practice key skills. It would be madness to contemplate this without having practiced it repeatedly! The average price of the Europa XS is not available. It is made of carbon fiber, including the landing gear and propeller.

Subsequently worked at Cranfield University researching into design for manufacture in the aerospace industry and distributed design teamworking across industry sectors. It doesn’t make much noise and is rather non specific, and whilst I have been growing somewhat deafer with age, my head sets have become more sophisticated and much more efficient at shutting out external noise! One Europa XS has ditched off the coast of Chile and floated long enough for the pilot to be rescued and the plane to be towed ashore, where it was hauled out to find that there had been no discernible structural damage.. Already for sale in the USA are planes like the Technam 2008 which is a CS-LVA plane in Europe equipped with the larger 914 and soon 915 Rotax engines. On top of this it is very important that the stick is held hard back whilst taxying (in fact in pretty much every situation when the plane is on the ground – you would need a gale force tail wind to overcome the effect of prop wash, itself typically 40kts), as this ensures maximum purchase of the tail wheel on the ground. 1 Europa Aircraft Experimental/Kit Single Engine Piston Airplanes for Sale Worldwide. Then climb into the dinghy off the wing. Before you come to the conclusion that the only sensible course is to give up flying, let me say that I believe there is now quite sufficient information about why and how even experienced pilots can be victims of unrecoverable stall/spin accidents to allow us to plan effective measures to eliminate or at least dramatically reduce our own risk. The answer was in effect, “We are experts and this is what we believe!” with no evidence presented. Search aircraft for sale for free! Yet in my experience most people see the risk of ditching as more serious than that of a stall spin accident. If swell looks substantial, choose to land along a crest. ), I hasten to add that I am no expert on the intricacies of ditching – I haven’t ditched one and do not intend to if I can avoid it! and likely to need more nerve and presence of mind than most will have available in such a crunch situation! However despite most ditchings being survivable, approximately 50% of survivors die before help arrives.”. And I strongly recommend practicing minimal height loss turns by doing 360 degree turns at a safe height and over some readily seen linear feature, measuring height loss at various speeds and bank angles. After having flown the Sling TSi, that model has easily surpassed anything Cessna or Piper has done with a reciprocating engine in my opinion. We don’t have to be flying from river sandbars to succumb to pressure and distraction. For my monowheel Europa (which is aerodynamically more efficient than most small planes) the measured figures are shown in table 2. Neita will also wear oxygen, her student a mask, and all vents will be open." Probable cause: The pilot’s exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack during takeoff, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall. Such a system should be Angle of Attack based or alternatively has built in g sensors to combine with airspeed to give an equivalent true prediction of the stall approach phase. Reliabilty: None of the 49 UK ditched aircraft appear to have been powered by a Rotax 912/4 engine, which certainly suggests they are more reliable than other alternatives. It seems only a question of time before some of these models make their way to American airfields, thanks to the build center revolution. So the message is: Never brake in a turn unless you are heading for a disaster otherwise! Whether you have the range to reach the airfield is another matter depending on its length and your climb rate before the engine failure. This is 4.0% – again much the same as the US figure and dramatically better than the mythical 50%. Oil pans and drain plugs are often "perfectly" located so that it is almost impossible to get to them without burning your hands, as well as spilling oil everywhere.