Why does a lot of pilots fear flying over water?

:):)
JHW said:
here is what many of our beaches look like. Knock yourself out (literally).

As for the water it's about 50F in the heat of the summertime, 35F this time of year. Even if you managed to stay conscious you'll just get pounded to pieces by the surf against the rocks.

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That's not a "beach".

Here is " my" beach: :)

aqarymuz.jpg
 
Henning said:
Shark wouldn't be a bad way to go.
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Wouldn't be a bad way to go! Did you see the movie Open Water? Somehow I think their deaths weren't very quick. I'll take crashing into the side of a mountain any day over getting eaten by sharks.
 
cowman said:
So with the hypothetical discussion of 100' trees vs ditching in water, something jumped out at me. If you can glide to land or water there's usually either a beach or at least an area close to the land with shallow water. Even if that water isn't shallow, it's still close to land so you have a chance to swim out of it. So why not aim for either the beach or the edge of the water?
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In theory sounds okay. Doesn't work if you are flying over the Maine coastline with the densest pine forests in the US, frigid water and predominantly rocky coastline.

I'd probably go for either the trees near the water or the water right next to the shore, depending on what looked best at the time.
 
Fearless Tower said:
In theory sounds okay. Doesn't work if you are flying over the Maine coastline with the densest pine forests in the US, frigid water and predominantly rocky coastline.

I'd probably go for either the trees near the water or the water right next to the shore, depending on what looked best at the time.
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When going for the trees how would you prefer to land on them?
 
JHW said:
here is what many of our beaches look like. Knock yourself out (literally).

As for the water it's about 50F in the heat of the summertime, 35F this time of year. Even if you managed to stay conscious you'll just get pounded to pieces by the surf against the rocks.

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Yeah I can see that being an issue. For me it's more likely to be a lake or large river... although in those cases odds are there's also a field nearby too.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Exactly. Full flaps on the verge of a stall, but still in control.
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Yeah, I don't think that gets taught enough... we learn Vg in an emergency for the gliding but that's way too fast for that kind of landing. One thing I want to do post-cert practice is find out how the plane acts going slower -- at some speed slower than Vg you'll hit best endurance which will lessen your decent rate but, of course, also lessen your distance travelled and at that point, any slower will increase the decent again.

I assume for trees, however, the best would be at minimum controllable speed since you're trying to minimize the horizontal vector into the trees the most -- and then resist all human urge to pull up as you go into the trees.
 
Velocity173 said:
Wouldn't be a bad way to go! Did you see the movie Open Water? Somehow I think their deaths weren't very quick. I'll take crashing into the side of a mountain any day over getting eaten by sharks.
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Have you ever considered that movies don't really depict reality?
 
So let me ask this: If landing in the water is so dangerous why on earth are many airports surrounded by water?
 
FloridaPilot said:
So let me ask this: If landing in the water is so dangerous why on earth are many airports surrounded by water?
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The same reason some are surrounded by trees, cliffs, and mountains.
 
FloridaPilot said:
So let me ask this: If landing in the water is so dangerous why on earth are many airports surrounded by water?
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Because those places are called islands and people like to go to islands, but get seasick on the boat ride there.:D
 
Eddie rickenbacker might chime in here with his story about crashing in the water but alas......he's gone west.
 
I like how the pilots aren't even wearing helmets -- and the first thing the guy does is whip out his comb as he poses on top of the wreckage. :)
 
Henning said:
Experience crashing things, talking with other people.
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But obviously not speaking with anyone who bought the ranch. Get real. Read about Eddie rickenbacker and see how much fun it was. They were rescued only by a lucky circumstance. They should have parished. Currently, if you go into the water in a fixed gear aircraft your undoubtedly going upside down. You probably won't have a life preserver and you probably will be injured. When my Stearman quit over a corn field I was very lucky. Two hours earlier I was flying over the Chesapeake bay with a national geo. photographer, filming a sail boat race from 200 feet. We would have died. It was cold. Just luck.
 
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Tricycle gear does not necessarily flip upside down, conventional gear you'll go over most likely unless the water is flat enough to do a locked wheel landing and drag it in by the tail.
 
Henning said:
Tricycle gear does not necessarily flip upside down, conventional gear you'll go over most likely unless the water is flat enough to do a locked wheel landing and drag it in by the tail.
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That makes no sense at all.
 
Henning said:
What part doesn't make sense? Wheels, if you hold the brakes, act as skis when above hydro planing speed.
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Rubbish!

Wheels don't act as skis otherwise there would be float planes with wheels instead of floats. If you analyze the situation as the wheels contact the water and look at the forces applied to the plane as this happens you will realize that the plane will rotate nose down immediately as soon as the wheels contact the water. How quickly and how much before the rest of the plane contacts the water will determine whether it flips over or not. I would absolutely ditch with the landing gear up.
 
Why do the title of this thread hurt my head? It's like nails on a chalk board.
 
JHW said:
the odds favor your prediction, but at the same time too much abstract analysis leads to inaccurate sweeping statements

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chsD90I8WEk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfXvIK6x-t8
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Nice try but both those videos are not relevant. First of all in both videos the aircraft are skimming the surface UNDER POWER which is NOT going to be the situation if you're ditching. Secondly you don't know how deep the water is in the first one (those tires may have been contacting solid ground below a couple of inches of water.

:nono:

Perhaps stop surfing the web for amusing irrelevant videos and do some abstract analysis before you try this yourself. ;)
 
Captain said:
Why do the title of this thread hurt my head? It's like nails on a chalk board.
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:D

I agree almost reason enough for us to stop posting to it so it disappears.

Damn. Just realized I brought it to the top again!
 
Tires and wheels can definitely act as skis. That's how guys can ride motorcycles across ponds. I could post a YouTube video, but I suspect you all have seen it already.

What makes it work is speed, lots of it. Too slow and you sink. Slow like ditching speed slow. Henning's skiing idea is nice, but ultimately irrelevant. Normally you would be gliding too slow to ever have much ski effect. Even if you did make a dive for the water and kept the speed up, without power you would quickly slow down and sink with the same results as a traditional ditching.
 
Dav8or said:
Tires and wheels can definitely act as skis. That's how guys can ride motorcycles across ponds. I could post a YouTube video, but I suspect you all have seen it already.
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It's not sustainable though otherwise we would be seeing records where someone has ridden a motorcycle across the English Channel and so on. Sure you can jump short stretches like snowmobiles across small stretches of open water but as you know every year a bunch of people end up dead because they tried to go across too far a distance. So characterizing it as "skiing" is not accurate. That is like we saying that when I jump that I'm "flying" between my points of contact with the earth. If it is not sustained it is not flying. Likewise with this skiing with wheels concept.
 
Cavorter said:
It's not sustainable though otherwise we would be seeing records where someone has ridden a motorcycle across the English Channel and so on. Sure you can jump short stretches like snowmobiles across small stretches of open water but as you know every year a bunch of people end up dead because they tried to go across too far a distance. So characterizing it as "skiing" is not accurate. That is like we saying that when I jump that I'm "flying" between my points of contact with the earth. If it is not sustained it is not flying. Likewise with this skiing with wheels concept.
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Yes, but planes don't just flip over upon ditching either. Plenty of people ditch fixed-gear airplanes and stay upright.

If you drop it into the water, you do have a higher risk of flipping. If you flare nicely, you'll probably skip a couple times and/or skim a few seconds before sinking in. The moment of the landing gear is fairly low.
 
Dav8or said:
Tires and wheels can definitely act as skis. That's how guys can ride motorcycles across ponds. I could post a YouTube video, but I suspect you all have seen it already.

What makes it work is speed, lots of it. Too slow and you sink. Slow like ditching speed slow. Henning's skiing idea is nice, but ultimately irrelevant. Normally you would be gliding too slow to ever have much ski effect. Even if you did make a dive for the water and kept the speed up, without power you would quickly slow down and sink with the same results as a traditional ditching.
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What makes it work is air pressure of the tires, the higher the air pressure the higher the hydro planing speed at 9*sqrt tire pressure in PSI. 'Oversize Tires' often sported on back country tail draggers can easily bring hydroplaning speed below stall, especially when you get into tundra tires. If your mains will ski in a three point attitude/speed, you'll drag in by the tail leveraging buoyancy and hull form for deceleration.
 
Captain said:
Why do the title of this thread hurt my head? It's like nails on a chalk board.
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Yet, you clicked it and decided to comment.....You must be one of those masochists!


I noticed the mistake, but I couldn't change it once posted!
 
FloridaPilot said:
Yet, you clicked it and decided to comment.....You must be one of those masochists!


I noticed the mistake, but I couldn't change it once posted!
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Relax, the 'Captain' in my name has nothing to do with planes. I'm 'Captian Typo'.
 
FloridaPilot said:
Yet, you clicked it and decided to comment.....You must be one of those masochists!


I noticed the mistake, but I couldn't change it once posted!
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I feel your pain: The misspelling in my thread title ("...Declarartion...") makes my head hurt too!
 
Henning said:
What makes it work is air pressure of the tires, the higher the air pressure the higher the hydro planing speed at 9*sqrt tire pressure in PSI. 'Oversize Tires' often sported on back country tail draggers can easily bring hydroplaning speed below stall, especially when you get into tundra tires. If your mains will ski in a three point attitude/speed, you'll drag in by the tail leveraging buoyancy and hull form for deceleration.
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And you've done this personally how many times? :rolleyes:
 
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