Landing an ultralight in the water, without floats, what happens when
you have to do an emergency landing into the water without floats.
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Landing an ultralight in the water without floats.
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This is what happens if you dont put floats on your
Microlight Na, walk away landing after engine-out on take off. The
aircraft was a New Zealand made Bantam B22
See'ya Peter White p-white@ihug.co.nz |
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The following can be found at:
http://www.durham-microlights.co.uk
Last week one of our Flash 2 Alphas took a swim in
the Baltic sea just outside of Stockholm.
Here is a short summary of the incident that may be interesting for your
newsletter. Use, edit or scrap as you see fit.
Ad verbatim:
"I was over flying my summer house which is on a small island about 1
km from the mainland. I was orbiting at about 1000 feet when the engine
began to loose power. I changed from the back to the under seat tank but
was unable to gain an increase in r.p.m. I did not have
sufficient height to glide to the mainland or time to get a hand under the
back seat and pump the primer so a ditching was the only option.
 The
island my summer house stands upon is all tree and rocks, so I decided
that the water option was better than a treetop landing.
I flew towards the shore in order to land in the shallowest water possible
and released my seat belt and my intercom lead. As an after- thought I
plugged the intercom lead back in with the intention of calling a PAN but
in the ensuring landing forgot about the emergency call.
I performed a "normal landing approach and flare" and settled
gently onto the surface back wheels first. A large bow wave built up and
acted as an "air cushion" and I was not thrown forward into the
front strut. The trike slewed over to the right, the right wingtip
contacted the water and the aircraft began to sink very quickly in an
engine first, back down attitude. I tried to exit the aircraft but was
trapped between the seat frame and the training bars mounted on the
uprights.
The aircraft sunk and settled gently onto the bottom at about
three metres depth and suddenly the wing moved forward allowing me to exit
the aircraft. I swam to the surface and was stopped by the headset lead
about 30 cms under the surface and had to use considerable force to break
the cable.
Time under water was about a minute and was very close to the
limit of my endurance. I did not panic during the exit procedure but was
very disorientated under water as to what was up and down and which way to
!
swim in order to avoid becoming tangled in the rigging wires.
I was picked up immediately by a pleasure boat and taken to land. I spend
a night in hospital for observation as I swallowed a lot of water. I was
discharged the next morning with a clean bill of health. When asked "What will you do next time it happens, jump or
stay?" he replied;
"I think that I would sit sideways on the seat with my feet outside
of the pod and fly the machine down to a couple of meters off of the
surface. I would then jump out to the side using the drag links as a
"springboard". I would prefer this method as I would be
extremely concerned about being trapped in the aircraft under water and
drowning"
Moral of the story???
Do not fly over water if you do not have a suitable landing field within
gliding distance, but then you all knew that!!!!
Look before you leap.
Cause of engine failure: Crap in one of the fuel pump valves. |
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