Engine Failure Landing on Water

[vanNostrum]

S E GA gear up or down?
Read somewhere else it does not make a difference in survival rate.
Any stats either way?

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Well another question would be if you are going to land an amphibious flying boat on the water would you land it gear up or gear down?

[vanNostrum]

[size=3]I know nothing about amphibious operations :-X but rumor has it one should not  select gear down when landing on water
My question comes after reading[/size]

[size=3]'' Contrary to popular belief, gear up or down doesn't matter.  Whatever allows you to land slowest is best.  I think that gear up may allow you to stretch the glide a bit more to a better ditching area though.''

What do you think about this statement?
[/size]

[Chuck Ellsworth]

[quote]Contrary to popular belief, gear up or down doesn't matter. What ever allows you to land slowest is best.

What do you think about this statement.[/quote]

Well since you are asking me my thoughts on that statement my opinion is whoever made it doesn't know what the fuck they are talking about.

But then maybe I don't understand the subject?

[vanNostrum]

I never had a complete engine failure, only once right after takeoff the engine lost power  at about 200'but I was lucky to have 5000' of runway in front of me, so other than that I don't have any personal experience .

I do agreed with the statement that touching down at the slowest possible speed maintaining control is the best for survival , however I always thought that for a land plane making an emergency landing on water gear up is the safest.

Thank you for your input

[Chuck Ellsworth]

You are correct, an emergency landing in the water is safest with the gear up in any airplane.


Whoever wrote that bit of advice you posted does not have a clue about the subject.


If the crew that landed the Airbus in the Hudson river had put the gear down it would have been a whole different outcome.

[HiFlyChick]

I also recently heard a statement about leaving flaps up on low wing aircraft (only).  I had never considered the argument before but it made sense - on a low wing aircraft, the flaps may act like a submarine tail plane and worse than that, may be ripped off and compromise the wing tanks, losing buoyancy.  I have no idea about the validity of the statement, but compromising the integrity of the wing tanks which might otherwise keep you floating for a while sounded like it a good argument.  Obviously you end up with a higher touchdown speed, but that may well be worth it if it means not nosing in and staying afloat long enough to get everyone out.

[ScudRunner-d95]

I would suspect much of this would be aircraft specific.

I doubt most GA light aircraft are "certified for ditching" let alone tested to see how they float. 

[img width=323 height=500]http://i.stack.imgur.com/McK3V.png[/img]