I too chickened out. I too a 3" diameter Genova PVC drain pipe, capped it at 42" and installed a schrader valve at the closed end. During flight at 95 mph with the left engine not producing thrust, I was able to stick is out AND up out of the opend pilots flip down "cherokee" window and remain in control of it- though I have no idea if it would have been coontrollabe with 15 lbs of ROCKS (bone ash!) inside of it. I had a 5 gal air tank with an air chuck ready to go.... But I my sisters came to thier senses and rented the cruise boat, and we did spread these from a properly charterd for the task vessel from Santa Cruz, CA.
I dropped my Uncle Allen's ashes. He was in the Merchant Marines. His wife's ashes were comingled with his. I just tossed the entire closed container out the window of my Cessna 185. It appeared that the container broke open when it hit the ocean.
Or, he might be honored that it was he who introduced the new member of the family to the world. Ya never know.
Be careful if yoyu do; years ago some folks in my folk's current town of Creede, Colorado were killed spreading ashes....... Cessna T210N crash in Colorado (N2WF) | PlaneCrashMap.com
That's horrible. The pilot and three passengers were killed. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/41399 Narrative: The airplane was on a flight to distribute the cremation ashes of the pilot's mother. Witnesses observed the airplane fly around the high altitude valley (elevation 10,400 feet, density altitude 11,864 feet) once and then spin to the ground. One witness observed a 'cloud of something' pass behind the airplane moments before it 'spun to the ground.' Records indicate that the pilot had accumulated a total of 441 hours of flight experience, with approximately 30 hours in the last 12 months. Toxicology tests on the pilot revealed that sertraline (trade name Zoloft, a non-approved drug for flight status) was present in his brain in levels several times higher than what would normally be expected from the maximum recommended dosage. A powder, which was light tan in color and gritty to the touch (similar to cremation ashes), was found throughout the cabin area. CAUSE: The pilot's failure to maintain flying airspeed and the subsequent stall/spin. A contributing factor was high density altitude.
Emotionally compromised pilot and passengers, technically questionable engineering, and a low altitude dump job. What could possibly go wrong.
Not meaning disrespect - but the suction methods are probably best. Our C130Es had a urinal, just a simple receptacle with a zinc pipe that vented directly overboard, located near on the ramp near the hinge, aft of the left paratroop door. It had a lid with a wire attached - when the lid was opened it pulled the vent open, too. Dirt simple. We did mostly tactical airdrop, so it was used quite often when we were unpressurized, and even when flying quite slow.
Maybe if we change the process to ‘depositing ashes’ verses ‘spreading’ the idea of using a plane will fade??
After a request was made by my friend’s friend for me to disseminate the ashes, I pondered all the things that could go wrong and possible ways to mitigate. I decided to say no, and this thread confirms the general wisdom in that. There are enough ways to kill yourself in a plane without doing it while paying homage to someone already departed. I remember a recent movie that showed the dispersal on a boat where the prevailing wind was unaccounted for, so the ashes came to reside back in the boat and on everyone. I think that was a comedy but if things can go wrong some of the time, they will.
A fellow pilot and friend of mine took someone up to spread ashes from his C-172, the ashes blew back into the plane and the interior of the plane was completely coated in ashes. A friend asked this favor of me using of my plane, and I politely suggested another plan for spreading his mother's ashes. I recently spent 20K on new radios, non-flyers have no idea.
I do. But, I'm a lurker by profession and am not allowed to post a link until I write something five times. So...
People being people, they'll get back to spreading ashes in stupid ways promptly enough. I don't know if you've met any people before, but they're kind of terrible. You don't even have to fly to have this go badly. Flying is just a great way to make it more expensive and potentially fatal compared to other ash-spreading mishaps. I know of an instance in which a man had his mother's ashes spread by mishandling by the USPS, who eventually delivered him some cardboard box remnants with a light ash coating inside and out. And then there's always the Big Lebowski method:
There are some unique ways to honor one's loved ones. The ashes of a friend's parents were released from one of the Sandia Peak Tramway cars. They died years apart, but it is fitting they are now joined again. The tramway was stopped when the car was at its maximum height above the valley below, about 1,700'. His dad was the general contractor for the tramway's construction in 1966.
