One for the flyers

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, SteveH

(A) An aircraft does not 'land' on water, it 'alights'. Unless:
(B) It's an airliner, in which case it 'crashes'.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - "He's hopeless, but he's honest"

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (Fallen apart) Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single"
Norton 850 Commando Kawasaki GTR1400

 

Whatever it does, you're pretty much dead, though.

The idea of being able to walk out onto the wings in your life-jacket is
just laughable.

 

That wasn't always the case.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, platypus

Indeed. But flying then was so much more civilised. Now they let poor
people do it.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - "He's hopeless, but he's honest"

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (Fallen apart) Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single"
Norton 850 Commando Kawasaki GTR1400

 

*waves*

 

It's really, really rare for an airliner to ditchy - that is, make an
intentional controlled landing on water, as opposed to just crashing
into it.

A few decades ago, a Lockheed Constellation ditched successfully (five
crew, no passengers) and the crew escaped. Before that, a KLM Connie
ditched after taking off from Shannon, killing about half on board. In
1990, another (by now rather old) Connie ditched, and there was one
fatality. Again, no passengers.

ISTR some jet ditched sometime in the 1960s or 1970s and floated quite
successfully.

<Google>

Ah, here:

http://www.airsafe.com/events/ditch.htm

The Comoros hijacking incident revealed one problem with ditching a lot
of modern airliners: unless you keep the thing absolutely level when it
touches the water, one of the engine pods is going to hit before
anything else does (unless it's an aircraft with tail-mounted engines,
of course), and the drag is going to whip the aircraft round very fast,
breaking off the tail.

This will let water in rather fast. And this is what happened in the
Comoros incident (of which a video exists, btw).

If you actually manage to put a modern jet airliner down on water in one
piece, in theory it should float for a hell of a long time, For a start,
it's very light, given its actual size, and secondly, a lot of space is
taken up with big sealed fuel tanks which act as buoyancy aids, even
when full (as fuel is lighter than water). The difficult thing is
getting it down in one piece....

Anyway, as I said, it's a very rare thing to happen (thankfully). Most
airliner crashes happen on take-off or landing (usually the latter). As
a general rule, once an airliner is up in the air and cruising along, it
tends to stay there.

 

<snip interesting stuff>

That's why I'm for smoke hoods to be placed into aircraft and not life
vests. Life vests are a waste of time, IMO.

Whereas of the accidents that do happen and an aircraft manages to come
down sucessfully, most of the time it's on the ground. Most of them
then proceed to catch fire and smoke is the No. 1 killer.

 

Agreed.

Those who've survived aircraft fires have said that one large inhalation
of the toxic smoke is enough to knock someone out. Which is probably as
well, actually, given that you'll then be unconscious when you fry.

As for life jackets, there was a recent use of them (can't remember
where or when) and apparently one problem was, as expected, people
inflating them *before* leaving the aircraft, thereby blocking the
exits.

 

The only real use I see for the emergency doors are to provide extra
legroom in economy. Plus, on Easyjet, nobody ever seems to pick the
seats with the grey headrests so I get first dibs on the best seats
every time.

 

snip>

When I was doing my offshore training the helicopter escape practice
was the best bit. Not surprisingly they didn't let us where life
jackets in the simulation because you can be certain that at least one
person would inflate before exit and cause a riot in the pool.

I might try to persuade my boss that offshore work is good so I can go
and do the course again this winter. My certificate is so far out of
date I'll have to do the whole lot again and it's a few days of
messing about on full pay as far as I'm concerned.

 

Air South West. Their cabin crews have something of a reputation for
this sort of thing.

 

Snip

Notably, both the sucessful events involved types without engines
slung under the wing but as pretty much every modern type has the
engines under the wing it's probably unlikely there will be many other
successful ditchings in the future. One cynical airline pilot told me
the only real use for the life jackets in such a scenario would be to
make it easier to find the bodies.

 

How many people would know about vacuum bogs, though? Istr some woman
having her lunch pulled out of her minge by one of them.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

What, Kari Byron's lunch was pulled out of her snatch ??

That, I'd have loved to see.

D.

 

Mythbusters did this one. Or, rather, they didn't.

 

A slight exaggeration to be sure, but some fat bint got stuck on one and
lawyers were lined up.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

I still don't think they'll let you smoke though, even in a smoke hood.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

Well they should've just pissed on her and gone back to their seats.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

Sounds like dragonair, they're up their with my favourite internal flight
airlines.