What you don’t hear about very often, for obvious reasons, are those few who don’t return to tell a tale of survival against the odds.Īny large body of water – an ocean or a large lake such as one of the Great Lakes in the U.S. Ask any of them and most will tell you so. Some of their stories are told on Equipped To Survive: Lessons Learned: True Life Ditching Experiences. There are plenty of stories of those who have survived a ditching in open water without a raft, just wearing a life vest or sometimes nothing at all to keep them afloat. There is no question that the odds are in your favor if you ditch (see Equipped To Survive‘s “ Ditching Myths Torpedoed!“), but carrying survival equipment is all about improving the odds. To do so is foolhardy, especially so if you are flying over colder waters. Pragmatism aside, it’s simply not prudent to travel over any significant body of water out of gliding distance from land without a life raft of some sort on board. In any case, before making that rationalization, pilots should understand what they are buying. Pilots can rationalize to themselves that they’re better than nothing, they usually work adequately, and that no Part 91 light general aviation flyer is about to shell out between $3,500 and $7,000 for a fabrication of cloth that will spend most of the year in the bottom of the closet or in the corner of the hangar. For the rest, “making-do” with a cheap and likely poorer-performing raft may be sufficient to satisfy those nagging voices inside our heads. Better than nothing, to be sure, but a lot worse than users have reason to expect. Of the GA pilots who are taking the prudent course, few realize that many of the rafts they are relying on for their over-water safety are downright deficient in one way or another. Many pilots and operators consider rafts to be a necessary nuisance, required by regulation, or a spouse’s insistence. Yet, even here, many don’t appreciate the dangers they might face. Pilots who are considering Caribbean overflights or jumping off from Narsarsuaq for Reykjavik or Santa Barbara for Hilo will have more critical requirements as they face more obvious dangers. However, it is important to remember that even a body of water as seemingly benign as Chesapeake Bay or Puget Sound can present significant dangers to a downed pilot and passengers, especially in colder months. So their perceived need for a life raft and their perceived requirements for the capabilities of that raft are minimal. Most pilots don’t fly over areas of water that they perceive to be dangerous. We also examine both the approved and unapproved rafts for the GA market and let you know which ones will more likely save your life if you ever need to use them. We’ll examine the regulatory requirements, the common-sense requirements and what you should look for when selecting a life raft. In this four-part series, AVweb will provide an in-depth look at aviation life rafts.

Have a nice life tour