Night water landing

Richard

Final Approach
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Ack...city life
I don't know why I think of such things...I just do.

A pilot in a VFR only single on straight floats (Lance, is that good enough?) departs from a south sea island in calm air and no swell just before sunset. His return is anticipated to be well after the end of twilight on a calm moonless night. In anticipation of his arrival, the pilot has worked it out with his buddy that the buddy will stand on the sandy beach shoreline with only a handheld and a powerful flashlight. The flashlight is the only lightsource on the island.

On arrival the pilot will turn on his landing light to signal the buddy that he is returning. The buddy will turn on his flashlight and aim it at the pilot to establish a two way visual contact. The buddy will count down to the mark when the plane passes directly overhead from which point the pilot will complete a course reversal and fly out bound to a procedure turn.

After the PT the pilot will let down to a water landing. He has previously calculated the power settings for a given groundspeed to allow for proper distance from shore at which to begin the landing.

Based on this, what is his probability of making a sucessful landing without an excessively long taxi to the beach? Also, if you were the pilot how would you make your inbound course reversal?

(The reason for the flight is the tribe ran out of beer for tonight's big bash and someone had to go get supplies. No, there are no water obstacles such as coral reefs, boats at anchorage, floating logs, etc)
 
Just before repassing the beach buddy and slightly abeam, drop enough cans of beer (your buddy shall have briefed them on how to shotgun the bounced brews) wrapped in an airbag with light sticks duct tapped on to ease the pain of the tribe's apprehension of your possibly long taxi. Then reverse course by standard rate turn until ready to proceed direct towards his light and use the glassy water landing technique either until the familiar feeling of the step cutting the surface on touchdown or until switching to standard visual cues when the landing light becomes effective on the water's surface. It works well.

Taxi time is then the least of concerns and I'd sure like to know how all those deadheads got scaned & cleared away!
 
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Dave Krall CFII said:
Just before repassing the beach buddy and slightly abeam, drop enough cans of beer (your buddy shall have briefed them on how to shotgun the bounced brews) wrapped in an airbag with light sticks duct tapped on to ease the pain of the tribe's apprehension of your possibly long taxi. Then reverse course by standard rate turn until ready to proceed direct towards his light and use the glassy water landing technique either until the familiar feeling of the step cutting the surface on touchdown or until switching to standard visual cues when the landing light becomes effective on the water's surface. It works well.

Taxi time is then the least of concerns and I'd sure like to know how all those deadheads got scaned & cleared away!
You mean the two course reversals = one racetrack with timed outbound leg? It's a VPF-A. (Very Powerful Flashlight)

Those deadheads went the way of the wind. They're just....gone.
 
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Tough deal Richard. Your pilot needs to get a helicopter!

Back in the good old days, we would fly into an LZ at night to a guy with one blinking strobe light (red filter). Don't know if I'd ever do it again, but did!

How do U come up with this stuff <VBG>

Dave
 
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Richard said:
I don't know why I think of such things...I just do.


Based on this, what is his probability of making a sucessful landing without an excessively long taxi to the beach? Also, if you were the pilot how would you make your inbound course reversal?

The main issues with such a landing would be the inability to see any obstacles in the water IMO. I assume there's none of the usual barrier reef type stuff, but all it would take is a boat without lights out there or a piece of flotsam to put the plane, pilot, and beer on the bottom of the ocean. I think a better plan would be to have several partygoers lining the beach with flashlights at 500 ft intervals so the plane could land closer and parallel to shore. At least that way the water would probably be shallow enough and the plane close enough for a rescue after the crash.

As to the reversal in your plan, I can't see how it would matter as long as the shore was straight for a reasonable distance. Just turn around and descend. Assuming calm water and wind, the taxi back isn't anything I'd be concerned about unless the need for beer was overwhelming.

(The reason for the flight is the tribe ran out of beer for tonight's big bash and someone had to go get supplies. No, there are no water obstacles such as coral reefs, boats at anchorage, floating logs, etc)

Well, I suspect that the pilot would certainly need some of that beer after the landing (perhaps before to supplement his courage). And how in the world would you be preventing any other boats from cluttering up the LZ?
 
So basically you are saying a glassy water landing on a dark night without the benifit of illumination other than a flashlight and a landing light...hmmm...the taxi part will the least of your worries.

With no way to judge your height above the water you have to do a best guess at when to transition to the landing attitude (ensuring that the float tips don't catch the water first) and carry power to maintain the proper airspeed and descent rate...then hold that until you contact the water where you can pull back the power. I don't think I would set up to land toward the beach as you really don't know when you will actually touch down at you might run out of room before contacting the water.

Anyway, just the thoughts of SES pilot with 7 hours in a floatplane.

Len
 
I would simply have my friend use the light to identify the edge of land, and then use that spot on the beach as the last visual reference point and land heading away from shore. It's not like the taxi run would be that long anyway.
 
Richard said:
You mean the two course reversals = one racetrack with timed outbound leg? It's a VPF-A. (Very Powerful Flashlight)

Those deadheads went the way of the wind. They're just....gone.

You really DO want that taxi time short...

Use the flashlight as your NAV station & time the leg like you said. Fly it a few times to varify average degree of error in both time and compass heading. Techno assist: "Cheat", zoom in on the screen and use your path mapping feature on your handheld GPS. In any event, setting up the glassy water descent at 100 fpm (~50 fpm is even smoother) just above your aircraft's perfect touch down speed and in its flawless landing attitude is critical for safety no matter how much room you have for the final approach.

Based on this, what is his probability of making a sucessful landing without an excessively long taxi to the beach?

Great news Richard!:
...I don't think you mentioned it but, depending on terrain and palm tree height, one might have the option of beginning let down while approaching the flashlight over land, reducing that damned, pesky taxi time by at least 2-3X! Probability of success is near 100%.
 
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Richard said:
The flashlight is the only lightsource on the island.

I think outside the box in such situations:

This is supposed to be a resupply stop so it's probably not a barren sand island. Is there any chance of having anything on that island that'll burn and float? If so, the guy on the island could go out and setup a home made lighted floatway (float not roll so floatway :D ) of a rough given length. That should give the pilot some kind of landing area reference. A single row of lights would be adequate. Setup an visual NDB type approach over the offshore end of the floatway lights. Do it right and he could scoot the last little bit past the lights to the beach.

Richard said:
Based on this, what is his probability of making a sucessful landing without an excessively long taxi to the beach? Also, if you were the pilot how would you make your inbound course reversal?

If I were the pilot, especially if it's just the one flashlight and no other lighting, I'd do a glassy water landing (try for 50fpm down or less at touchdown) away from or at least parallel to the beach. Landing toward the beach to minimize taxi time with no references beyond a pinpoint light source sounds too much like running in the pitch black tunnel at college when the power went out. It was interesting but if you didn't stop in time those steps going up at the end, or in this case the beach, is a killer when you hit it at speed.
 
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Richard said:
I don't know why I think of such things...I just do.

Night water landing = bad idea..
 
Been working on this hypothetical of yours Richard and found the ZERO taxi distance solution, unless it's in a steep fiord or other negative terrain issues environment:

Pilot doesn't really have to do a full course reversal over the buddy's light. Just immediately turn right or left to go down shore after passing over and seeing it directly below (no need for buddy's radio either) then do a full course reversal PT* towards the water and precalculated let down parallel to or ~10 degree offset from shoreline to the glassy water night LDG, then drifting with engine off and a tiny little bit of water rudder to touch the beach sands in front of the NAV station light as the last of the seaplane's kinetic energy is expended.

*The PT for this mission shouldn't be at standard rate but a steep turn instead to avoid flying way out over the water. And when finished please, for God's sake, don't drop the beer getting out of the plane!
 
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