Amelia Earhart - Eat your Heart out

[A4sForever]

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Much help in ditching plane[/SIZE][/FONT]


[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Verdana][SIZE=-2]Lyn Gray, left, and her co-pilot Kristian Kauter arrived at Sand Island yesterday aboard a Coast Guard cutter.
The pair ditched their Piper Seminole 535 miles northeast of Hilo on Thursday.[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, Verdana][SIZE=-2]
ANDREW SHIMABUKU | The Honolulu Advertiser [/SIZE][/FONT]

[SIZE=-1]Australian pilot Lyn Gray and her co-pilot, Kristian Kauter, had plenty of advisers around when they realized they would have to ditch the little two-engine Piper Seminole in the middle of the Pacific.

[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]"There must have been 10 or 12 airplanes nearby," said Gray, who has flown from the Mainland to Australia 17 times. "They were helping us." [/SIZE][SIZE=-1] One of the planes helping on Thursday was a Navy P-3C, she said. There were a number of civilian airliners overhead, and a Coast Guard C-130 arrived to help.

[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]On Thursday, Gray and Kauter were about 1,000 miles off the coast of California when Gray noticed that the Piper's fuel level had dropped significantly, and Clamback could see fuel leaking from one of its engines.
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The pilots took turns flying the plane on a single engine while the Coast Guard searched for the best area for them to ditch. [/SIZE][SIZE=-1] Kauter said their main fear was being knocked unconscious when they would hit the water, so they carefully stowed everything behind them as securely and as far away from their seats.

[/SIZE][SIZE=-1] Soon the Coast Guard gave word that they'd found a spot to ditch and a sea captain ready to help: The Maltese container ship Virginius, en route to China, could pick them up about 535 miles northeast of Hilo. [/SIZE][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][SIZE=-1]The Coast Guard C-130 flew ahead, dropping flares into the ocean to make a runway for Gray.

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060611/NEWS08/606110350/1001


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[Fly Navy]

That's awesome. Ditching at sea that far from land would scare the crap out of me... glad to see they had a lot of help.

 

[Fly Navy]

That's some piss poor luck...

Piss poor? They were rescued... fast... that's good luck

 

[PropStop]

Sounds like they kept their heads about them. Wonder how you get a job doing those transits, sounds kinda cool.

 

[A4sForever]

.....But to answer you're question, you gotta be someone like Bill Cox thats done it about 390 times, and has the experience and know how to do it.

These two do not exactly exude "experience"' , but then I'm just an old hard ass and a meanie, to boot. She's (?) supposedly "done it" 17 previous times -- Mainland to the Land Down Under. Or am I missing something ???

The owner, a Mr. Clamback (sic) has ditched off Hawaii twice while attempting to fly from the Mainland to Australia. He runs a business ferrying airplanes -- wonder what his insurance runs. Practice makes perfect, yes?

Captain Lyn Gray (left) ... First Officer Kristian Kauter (right) @ Sand Island CGS Honolulu -- just across from Gordon Biersch. Good beer, at least.

 

[plc67]

Well, if you're going to ditch, ditch in deep water and let the NTSB figure that one out.

 

[DanMa1156]

Cool story... cool that they had so much help.

 

[PropStop]

Ya if you call spending 16 hours in a piston single, 1000 #'s over gross laden with fuel (in a plane with a 3500 # MGTOW), flying 2400 miles across open ocean.... "cool"

not remarkably different from what I do now... and hey, on one end of your trip is Australia, one of the coolest places on earth

 

[Fly Navy]

not remarkably different from what I do now... and hey, on one end of your trip is Australia, one of the coolest places on earth

Of course, you're flying 4 turboprops.

Turboprop reliability > Piston reliability

Be kinda neat to fly to Hawaii and Australia though.

 

[PropStop]

Of course, you're flying 4 turboprops.
Turboprop reliability > Piston reliability

Have you seen a P-3 before?

 

[Goober]

Have you seen a P-3 before?

True - could say the same to the guy flying the radial engined S-2 through the wave off the cat. Turboprops would have croaked. Besides, WW2 radials took machine gun and cannon fire and kept flying. Personally, I don't really want to see a T56 get hit w/ anything. The again, I'm funny like that.

 

[PropStop]

Turboprops would have croaked.

Would they? A T-56 for sure. Modern turbine engines can ingest an astounding amount of water and still operate. I watched footage of them testing the 777 engines and they threw a sh!t-ton (standard, not metric) of water, ice, snow, chickens, etc into it and it kept going. i was amazed.

 

[Goober]

777 = new technology
T-56 ≠ new technology (I was an E-2 QAO)

Was actually thinking more along the lines of a TF-34 (a la S-3) vs. a radial. The S-3 would have bit it, no doubt in my mind. Pretty sure the P-3's 2nd stage is diff than the E-2/COD 425/427 engines, and likely less cantankerous too, so you might be right.

 

[Schnugg]

If at first you don't succeed, ditch, ditch and ditch again...