IMHO that single raft is a joke.
Anything like a normal day around the UK and most of northern Europe coast, will have waves, that will have you out of that raft every few minutes.
Peter wrote:
I would say this is a no-go because if that attachment stays attached, the whole lot will go down with the plane.
That can be solved quite easily with a quick release mechanism, which will break free from the airplane at a design force. E.g. they will stay connected until the pull on the connect exceeds the force which would be necessary to pull the inflated raft down. That would be quite considerable.
On new designs, a raft could even be “hidden” in the wing like slides are in some airliners too and made to open up when the door gets opened after being armed or on contact with water.
Peter wrote:
AFAIK it has never been demonstrated to work
The best demonstration I recall was the ditching of US Airways in the hudson. The slides were used for this purpose and worked quite fine.
I don’t think that sunk until later. Also the water was dead calm.
Peter wrote:
I don’t think that sunk until later. Also the water was dead calm.
They used the slides as life rafts and they did detach them as well, even though by the time they did, most pax were off. But the concept of slides as rafts was verified that day quite successfully.
As it’s been the only airliner ditching in recent history, there is not much else “evidence”.
Exactly; zero evidence whether airliner rafts would work in a real sea situation, say a sea state corresponding to F4-F7 wind, say swells of 5m on the open sea. And evidence from ground evacuation cases suggests that if there is any panic it makes a dramatic difference (check out the behaviour during the 1980s Manchester 737 takeoff fire, and that was 40 years ago when people were a lot more mobile).
But there are loads of survival data points from GA. I would bet the great majority of where a raft was deployed but didn’t “work” were cases where they hit the water at 10,000 fpm (yes plenty of those – example). The clear evidence is that these 1000 quid + rafts do work, provided you don’t ram the plane into the sea.
My recollection of reading about this for 20+ years is that when a plane was lost over the sea, neither a raft nor a body in a jacket was ever found, suggesting it was a high speed crash, or for some other reason (e.g. a 1-door plane like a PA28 or a Mooney, with a large/non-mobile passenger in the front RHS) nobody was able to get out before it sank.
I was never going to buy a 1-door plane after a “fun time” with a PA28 door lock (posted it before) where the school (and the EASA “Part M Subpart G” company) lied through their teeth about it having been fixed.
The reality few want to discuss is that most GA non-owner flyers don’t want to spend the 1-2k on a raft, or it isn’t practical (renters, have to carry everything in/out), or syndicate politics (can be tough even with good ones) make it hard, etc. Even schools won’t spend the money (I used to lend mine to a school, until some dick unwrapped it and – fortunately poorly – repacked it, and I had to get it overhauled, so that was the end of my lending). So all kinds of excuses are dragged out for not carrying a raft, but the arguments don’t stack up to actual data. I think one is doing GA a great dis-service, because the end result is that so many people won’t fly over water at all, or if they do they fly crazy routes like going to Le Touquet with a 50nm detour in order to cross only at the Dover crossing. When my son started flying I bought him a raft.
Sure you should expect to get water into a raft, but there is a vast difference in heat loss between having say 10cm of water sloshing about in the raft (which you can have a go at throwing out) and being fully immersed in the sea with a life expectancy of perhaps 1hr, on average. Actually jackets alone also tend to work but again that’s because most GA flyers avoid longer crossings.
Peter wrote:
a sea state corresponding to F4-F7 wind
Anything over F5 for open seas crossings will weigh badly into my risk matrix. Good for landing groundspeed, but a bad sea for being in a raft.
MattL wrote:
you can see how much water was already affecting the raft even though they were super prepared and rescue was relatively quick.
This seems to be the Survival Products 1400B posted on before. Same one @Peter and myself carry.
I trained the family on that one , albeit in a still pool which, while cold, was in a very calm sea state, so not as realistic as desirable. This should however eliminate most of the startle factor as to what do we do now we are find ourselves in the sea with a raft and no airplane… I trained in a full survival suit and we all had actual lifevests on and inflated. Movement is then significantly hampered.
I found you need a quite hefty pull to inflate and in our case it inflated the right way up.
Inverting it or righting it up is easy enough using the assist handles. SOme of the larger rafts do not have a right-way-up (ie dual tubes with floor in between), but those are much higher from the sea and more difficult to board.
172driver wrote:
trying to get into a raft without a ladder
Well the 1400B does have an assist handle if you board from the correct side which has a big sign CLIMB IN HERE. If you were never trained on its use you may wonder what it is there for. Just grab it and pull yourself in. The risk is that without water ballast and no one onboard it may tip over. This is easy to avoid by having someone holding on to the grab straps on the opposite side of the raft. It is more of a team than an individual effort and we did find it quite easy if you use the grab handle or the assistance from someone either onboard or in the water grabbing the raft and assisting those climbing in. Again a team effort:
Peter wrote:
One should expect water in the raft
For some reason in this instance they did not inflate the post to hold the cover standing proud of the deck. This will facilitate water ingress and make it difficult to bail it. ONce you know how it works, it is easy to inflate post and erect the cover:
Here we are with 5POB and bailing water.
Also getting out of the raft onto the rescue boat did not seem so difficult.
Hence we indulged into some celebration of success
I found the 1400B does hold 5POB quite allright due to the square shape so I prefer it for our 4+2POB airplane vs the round Revere 4 person which will be better suited for four.
Here is a picture of the raft with cover and me inside for scale.
And here is the picture of the empty raft with the assist strap on the floor you can use to board…if you know it is there.
BTW, the cover opening should be placed facing the CLIMB IN HERE side, not the way we set it in the picture.
Other than knowing where what and when to do , I found staying together while in the water and in some panic one of the more challenging and important matters. A lot of effort is otherwise spent recovering someone that drifts away. The raft is also useful in holding everyone together while in the water, but it should not be inflated if you are trying to recover someone that is drifting away. . Once together I dont think it is such a hurry to inflate it and get in one by one. Better take 4 minutes than panic and invert it or lose sight of one of the survivors. I usually fly with 3-5 POB and I make it a deliberate point not to lose any one: a plan for each one.
So if you can get in the raft while standing on the wing, even better, but if not, dont panic, do not lose hold of the raft lanyard, tie it to yourself if you can and once all gathered together you can inflate it and calmly board.
Again, use all the effort in staying together , grab hold of the straps on each other’s lifevests to impede drifting away, and then boarding (and everything else) is not that difficult. Just figure out the procedure in advance.
Thanks for this Antonio, really informative
Sure! You are welcome. Hopefully we will never have to use it , but as a minimum I had a blast with the kids!
Shortly after the training we flew from Mallorca to Castellon in Spain’s mainland and after safely landing on a dry runway post the 80nm sea crossing, the little one complained: but daddy, we have not landed on the water nor deployed the raft: when are we going to do it?? 
We were still laughing long after we landed back in Mallorca…
as a minimum I had a blast with the kids!
I enjoyed my training too.
Perhaps it might be a nice idea for a winter euroga meet up? We could all meet up somewhere that facilitates sign training? Somewhere served well be commercial traffic so that we could guarantee attendance and not be subject to weather.
