To start let me stipulate, high wing, fixed wheeled gear. Flying remote area's lots of water/lakes or timber, engine failure, where do you go?

Has anybody done the emergency underwater egress course? I talked to quite a few pilots in Canada, all of them to man said they would go for a ditching rather than head for timber.

Most water in Canada even in the summer would be very cold. Ditching's usually hit hard and overturn, caving in the windscreen and incapacitating anybody inside. Timber is usually tall round the edge of lakes with no foreshore, going into tall timber could have a long drop after contact.

How many successful ditching's have you heard about? The same with timber, how many have been able to walk away from a timber crash?

One into timber in Vietnam. 7 crop dusting into adjoining fields, roads, Rio Grande levee, and dikes. 4 on pipelines into fields, roads, and airfields. None into water.

That's a load of forced landings there, if you had a choice, which one you goen for?

Fields in Midwest, and roads in West have wide sholders. Roads in East are not as good but fields are few. Never flew pipeline around many major cities in the West. Albuquerque, Denver, and such were plenty open. Warehouse roofs around Class B in East not so bad except HVAC units. Never needed one, however.

OK Contact, say your flying elsewhere like Eastern Canada. Lots of lakes, everything else is timber, your flying a fixed gear wheeled aircraft. Engine failure, where you headed, Timber or Ditching?

For me it would most likely be a lake, I run floats all Summer and Wheel skis all winter. Those are the only two seasons we have north of the 49th Oh I forgot black-fly and mosquito season, their always happy to see us drop by for a visit.

Maplefit, you know when the ice is melting and you have those floating sheets of ice, you have skies on because it was still frozen where you were going. Now where you goen, water or timber?
Never seen Squeeters like Ontario, I have no hair, when I rubbed my hand over my head the mosquitoes felt like hair they were that thick.

In the past I've typically planned my seasonal maintenance during the shoulder seasons to mitigate risk. The wheel skis go on as soon as float flying wraps, I push that season as long as possible and then wait for "safe ice", that's usually about mid January around here. That leaves the tail end of October/November and December as my down months seasonal maintenance and upgrade projects on the airplane.

About eight or ten years ago I think it was, an experimental Cub Crafter's cub landed in the Columbia river north of Wenatchee somewhere. There was some kind of a problem with an experimental prop he was trying out. He said he made a tail low wheel landing on the water. He got out and swam to shore towing the plane. He wanted to get it to shore before it sank.

Here's another ditching in the Columbia near cascade Locks just last week. They made it out and swam to shore.
https://www.kptv.com/news/2-people-swim ... e35ab.html

What you’re asking is all hypothetical. Too many variables to formulate a “standard” answer to your question.

For example:

What type plane, and how many occupants? I’ve been through emergency underwater egress training more than once. Gets more complicated depending on number of egress points and access to them.

What time of year? Spring and fall water is cold, and now you’re in a true survival situation soaking wet, and without your survival gear, which went down with the ship. Most wont last long after dark.

Type of craft will also decide a lot about outcome landing in trees. A friend landed an Otter in trees with nine aboard. Only injury was a broken ankle by person in co pilot seat. Alternative was Yukon River.

Which brings up other question: Is water moving or static? Big fast river like the Yukon are almost always cold and potentially dangerous, where a shallow lake might be warm and wade to shore.

So, answer is: It depends.

MTV

I've actually been swimming in lakes near the arctic circle. Not fun, even with a warm cabin near by.

Like Maplefit, I go directly from floats to wheel-skis and vice-versa. But if I had to choose, on wheels, between open tundra and scrubby trees/bushes OR water, I'd choose dry land every time.

A water landing, assuming you and your passengers get out okay, ends in a real survival exercise. Your survival gear (other than the very basics which you have on your person) is still in the 'plane, which is on its way to the bottom. At least on land you stand a fighting chance, assuming the people have minor injuries and the airplane doesn't burst into flames.

-0-

Being upside down in a plane after crashing is very disorienting, I don’t think I’d want to add water to the fun. I’ve spent maybe 20 minutes in several thousand hours being over water where a glide back to land wouldn’t have been an option, if being over water was a normal activity and I had egress training maybe I’d have different opinions. Leaving out of our grass strip you’re over 70 ft pine trees as soon as you clear the runway, I’ve decided I’ll just stall it as slow as possible and hope for the best if the situation arises.

I have a friend who put an 802 Fire Boss into the trees a couple years ago and walked away with surprisingly few injuries. He chose the trees instead of a logging road that looked like it might be too narrow and rip the wings off descending into the gap between the trees.

Here’s a question for spray pilots that several of my friends and myself haven’t quite decided the answer to: if you’re hauling a load over a wooded area with no option but to put it in the trees if the engine quits, do you dump the load or not? If you keep the load, your weight might aid in smashing through the big limbs and provide more cushioning when coming to a stop. On the other hand, dumping the load at the right time could aid in getting slower before you drop in, but being lighter means a big limb could bring you to a sudden stop.

There's a lot of lakes in the areas where I noodle about so a ditching as close to the shoreline as possible is my preferred course of action. My "larger" survival kit lives in a floating, waterproof barrel well within reach so if it's at all possible I'll toss it out and then collect it later so it desn't go down with the ship. That's my Plan A, here's hoping I never have to give it a go for real but at least it's a plan.

Flying where I do in Alaska, there are many lakes like you mention where the lake is the valley then the trees immediately start at it's shore and normally start going uphill quick. I've always postulated in my head that I would attempt to ditch it in the water but right at the beach, along shore. No idea if this is my best chance but it's what I'd try. Luckily more often, there are plenty of swampy/tundra/tussocks areas that I could put it down on instead. I'd count on flipping in these areas, but I'd rather crawl out of a dry upside down airplane than a wet one.

CenterHillAg,

A full hopper makes a plane fly like a pig and that is at full throttle. Dump. Less than half, it doesn't matter. I have dumped once. Forced landing is a six second deal. I just usually didn't get around to dumping. Also, a high percentage of the fatalities I was near were dumping. Nose pitches up really much and really fast. What is the specification? Four seconds i think.

Contact

Over in western Canada where I fly there is usually a lot of muskeg ground dotted throughout the trees. That's where I'm headed first. If it were strictly a water or tree scenario, I'm not sure. I think water very close to shore. But sometimes that isn't a great option either. When the lake is the bottom of a canyon with trees starting on the banks going up right away, the water is usually quite deep even close to shore. And there is often sheer rock getting up to the trees. In that case I'm taking trees.

CenterHillAg wrote:Here’s a question for spray pilots that several of my friends and myself haven’t quite decided the answer to: if you’re hauling a load over a wooded area with no option but to put it in the trees if the engine quits, do you dump the load or not? If you keep the load, your weight might aid in smashing through the big limbs and provide more cushioning when coming to a stop. On the other hand, dumping the load at the right time could aid in getting slower before you drop in, but being lighter means a big limb could bring you to a sudden stop.

Normally if spraying what you have in the hopper is not what you want to have a bath with, dump it, it should be a reflex action and the first thing you do. Solids the same, it's probably fert but same, dump first then think. A loaded Ag (Usually heavily loaded) aircraft does not glide, stalls faster, does not turn. Any landing either into obstructions or open country you want to be as slow as possible.

Lots of factors to think about. I would take water over big green trees most any day, but I am good in the water, others may not be. Water-ski right up the the trees then go between a few would also work.
DENNY

If its to be trees I was taught many years ago too aim between the two tallest ones. The theory being it peels the wings off and takes the fuel tanks as far away from the rest of the bits & pieces as possible.