I was wondering if anyone on here has had the misfortune to have to land their taildragger on water? And if so, what happened and what sort of technique did you use for the landing?

I'm curious, as I've occasionally had to perform the odd ferry flight with the Porter over some long stretches of water and aside from the usual ditching techniques, I was wondering if anyone had any first hand tips to share for those of us with taildraggers?

Cheers!

I've always assumed we'd be pretty well screwed. Thinking through how to handle the egress is about all to do I believe, after landing slow as possible of course. Maybe landing in a major slip may prevent flipping over? Probably not I'm guessing.

What I have wondered is if the 750 lb. plane I fly with 29" Airstreaks, would float? NO, I'm guessing, maybe sink slower though.

A couple years ago a Carbon cub ditched in the Columbia River below Entiat WA near Orando. He set it down on the water as easy as possible...Like trying to water ski...it stayed upright. He got out and swam to shore pulling the plane with him. Something like that anyhow. I can't remember for sure.

Send Alex on this site a PM, he kept the tires down in a 185.
I personally watched a 180 and a Pacer flip over in water.
In both of those cases I had already landed as was close by, seconds after they went over I was at their plane watching them figure out which way was up.
Getting out of a flipped plane in deep water would be scary.

Terry wrote:Send Alex on this site a PM, he kept the tires down in a 185.
I personally watched a 180 and a Pacer flip over in water.
In both of those cases I had already landed as was close by, seconds after they went over I was at their plane watching them figure out which way was up.
Getting out of a flipped plane in deep water would be scary.

When in doubt, just follow the bubbles up to the surface.

I've been on my back twice, on land. It is disorienting, more fore aft than up down. In a Rio Grande cotton field, when my engine quit, I went for an open area without tall cotton. Got it down where I wanted, but the sandy loam rows were so lush, I went on my back. After unlatching the harness and dropping on my helmeted head, I was most concerned with digging out. The small canopy was deep between two rows and the side windows were completely underground. I busted a hole in the side window with my helmet and dug out with my hands. A lesser concern, while digging out, was why is the side loader still leaking? Upside down it would be higher than the hopper and hoppers usually break in a crash. It wasn't the side loader, behind the pilot. It was the nose gas tank, still in front of the pilot. I mistakenly thought the nose would still be pointed the way it was when I touched down.

Sorry, no help with the actual ditching technique. Keep up the good work.

Fortunately, I never have, and you will fortunately likely never need to with proper fuel management and a PT-6 out front.

If I routinely flew long water legs, I would fly with a PLB on my body and a Water survival kit including a water bottle, a PFD, an inflatable that would allow me to get above the water surface (a blow up raft or tube), a signaling mirror, a smoke bomb or two, a flare, and some food. I would tether this package to a chord with a easy to grab loop attached to the door frame.

In the event of a "water landing", or "crashing in to the ocean" in the words of George Carlin, I would open the main cabin door prior to impact, and count on the plane flipping on to its top side. The event would probably not be very traumatic meeting the water at 1.1 Vs in a tail low attitude. I would guess that the wing and fuselage purging of air would probably keep the plane on or near the surface for about 10 seconds or so. That should provide enough time to get your poop in a group for the imminent survival situation if you are alone.

If you have passengers, now your control over the situation is much more of an unknown. I would assess the physical condition and estimate the coolness of my passengers prior to departing over water. Your company can either make or break you in a survival situation. A panicked person would likely pull you under if you made contact with them. I would probably focus on occupant egress first, get away and establish flotation, then take survival camp to them in the water. As PIC, everyone is your responsibility until safely recovered.

My .02

Terry wrote:Send Alex on this site a PM, he kept the tires down in a 185.
I personally watched a 180 and a Pacer flip over in water.
In both of those cases I had already landed as was close by, seconds after they went over I was at their plane watching them figure out which way was up.
Getting out of a flipped plane in deep water would be scary.

If I recall, and he may chime in to correct, is that he stalled it about 10 or 15 feet high, which slowed his forward speed to the minimum and the aircraft entered the water more in a "plopping" motion instead of a skimming motion.

Zzz wrote:

Terry wrote:Send Alex on this site a PM, he kept the tires down in a 185.
I personally watched a 180 and a Pacer flip over in water.
In both of those cases I had already landed as was close by, seconds after they went over I was at their plane watching them figure out which way was up.
Getting out of a flipped plane in deep water would be scary.

If I recall, and he may chime in to correct, is that he stalled it about 10 or 15 feet high, which slowed his forward speed to the minimum and the aircraft entered the water more in a "plopping" motion instead of a skimming motion.

Since the title of this thread doesn't specify ditching in "Water", I get a free pass for drifting a little. Right?

Anyway, I always thought stalling 5-15 feet high and then "Plopping" down on heavily wooded or very rocky area's would work better than gliding/skimming, too. May not be good for the back. But, may be better than a potential head/brain injury. (Some of you probably think my brain is messed up now. Can you imagine if I had a brain injury?? LOL ) Thoughts?

Friend of mine ditched his cub in the Ocean a few years back... Was not intentional, it quite about 20 feet off the water after a long glide down the face of a glacier... He had no time to even think about what to do before he was upside down... 3 days later the cub floated - yes floated - upside down with 31 inch bushwheels and an empty belly tank out into the open water... Next day he got by a turbine Otter on floats that saw the cub floating and flew the beach line until he was found...

The cub floated in the open water for 10 days and was recovered by a fishing boat....

Brian.

Scolopax wrote:....... The event would probably not be very traumatic meeting the water at 1.1 Vs in a tail low attitude.....

I disagree.


I got hit head-on out of the blue by a drunk driver once, years ago. I was stopped, he was probably doing 40 mph. My rig got bounced up onto the center divider (I was in the left turn lane), my glasses got knocked off, and although unhurt I was severely discombobulated. Took me a few seconds to shake it off and figure out what was going on

Now, imagine that you're flying at lets say 60 mph, easing down toward the water, and within about 3 seconds after hitting you're doing 0 mph, you're upside down, and possibly at least partially submerged. In the words of a therapist-- how does that make you feel?

I think anyone in that situation is lucky to get out alive. I know of at least two local incidents (both amphibs landing on the water with the wheels down) where the pilots survived, but the pax didn't. In one case, the passenger was the young son of the pilot-- very tragic.

I agree with Hotrod 180. We don't want to stall high and impact nose first. We want to fly all the way down as slow as possible. We want to stop quickly, but not impact suddenly. But stalling is not flying; it is falling. By design, the nose will rapidly go down to regain flying speed (tractor mounted engine.) Fixed gear will probably flip us in water, but I expect we would slide backwards a bit. Again, I have no water experience. But, I have had thirteen engine failures without a scratch. The Pawnee I went on my back with slowed a lot before going over. I expect this would happen in water as well. I flew all the way down on each forced landing. In aviation accident statistics, stalling is usually fatal.

contactflying wrote:In aviation accident statistics, stalling is usually fatal.

Every flight ends in a stall How high you are when you execute it is what makes all the difference. It seems that in the scenario of ditching in water, this is the main thing we can control.

Why not use the (by your own terminology) "stall-down approach" at a higher AOA, close to minimum controllable airspeed, with enough energy to arrest as much forward speed at possible at the last possible moment by maximum elevator input?

Zzz wrote:

contactflying wrote:In aviation accident statistics, stalling is usually fatal.

Every flight ends in a stall

A wheel landing is not a stall landing, neither is a hydroplaning the wheels when waterskiing.

You stall 10, 20 feet above the water, you're gonna regret it in a microsecond when the nose takes the brunt of the impact. A tail low, minimal vertical descent touching the water is gonna be a whole lot easier on your seatbelts.

But unless you're near a shoreline of some type, you're not going to have the depth perception to judge 100 feet above the water, much less 1 foot or less. Glassy water, especially big glassy water is scary stuff.

My plan for me, if I get stuck chosing tree tops and rocks vs water on the way to my BC property and I have a prop turning... Tail low, full flap, wheel to a waterski, then add all the power I can as I slow below waterski speed. No matter what happens, it won't happen very fast.


Gump

Zane,

I think Patrick's stall down approach would work, but that is a stall at the surface, not at ten feet. Like Gump, I would use power, if I had it, to get below stall speed while still flying in low ground effect. He knows the water and says that would not work there because of depth perception. I am a good swimmer but have avoided water when in an aircraft. I have had too many engine failures.

Jim

Re-read Gumps. I've got it now. Ski it in from low water effect near the shore where you do have depth perception. Sorry Gump. Anyway, don't stall anywhere above three inches.

I don't have any ditching experience, but I did attend a ditching seminar put on at the Seaplane Base at OSH several years ago. The presenter was a pilot and USCGA instructor. Of course, much of his audience was seaplane pilots, but his presentation was applicable to any kind of emergency landing on water which resulted in being inverted--and he emphasized that almost any fixed gear airplane would invert most of the time, whether high wing, tail dragger or nose dragger, or low wing--not all of the time, but most of the time. He also emphasized, just as we're always saying about forced landings on land, fly it all the way to touchdown, and how important it is not to slow down so much that the airplane stalls above the water--he said dropping from above 50' is like dropping onto concrete, and the damage would be the same. In other words, it's better to flip inverted than to drop in from any height.

He recommended that anyone who regularly flies seaplanes or over water in land planes should take a course in egress training, which includes actual inversions in water. He mentioned several around the country and in Canada.

Cary

Anyway, I always thought stalling 5-15 feet high and then "Plopping" down

This method worked for me. I got low, and went as slow as possible. The nose shook, then dropped suddenly in a stall. We impacted the water at about a 45 degree angle and stayed in that position. Once we determined we were all ok, and got a little egress plan together, I intentionally flooded the cabin by opening the window to relieve pressure. When able, I opened the door and we all swam away. My wife was the last out. She probably swam up about ten feet to get to the surface.

I'm not sure the outcome would have been the same had we flipped over. And remember: get you doors opened before you hit the water.

Alex

Cary wrote:He recommended that anyone who regularly flies seaplanes or over water in land planes should take a course in egress training, which includes actual inversions in water. He mentioned several around the country and in Canada.

Cary

I've gone through dunker training. Brett has, too.

It really is great training and really highlights how inverted and inside out your situational awareness can get upside down under water.

A key takeaway: find and practice holding a reference in the cockpit before you unbuckle your harness. If you unbuckle without it you are very likely to lose your way. They showed us a video of a helo that went down in chest deep water. The pilot drowned trying to swim out of the chin bubble because he got misoriented.

Also, stay calm

Where there are no obstructions and very low ground effect is utilized, a flight may end in touchdown well below stall speed but not in a stall. Low ground effect does make that much difference. When there is a strong headwind or crosswind, a flight may end in touchdown at zero ground speed but not in a stall. Many wheel landings, however, are made way too fast above stall speed. Like Zane says, we need to be at stall when we touch down in a no wind or light wind. Like Gump and I say, there are times when it is much safer to get below stall speed in low ground or water effect before touchdown. Like Cary's guy says, don't stall at any altitude anywhere. Fly all the way to the normal/forced landing or crash as appropriate. Alex, good job. I am glad that worked out. Like Cam Tom 12 said, stay calm.