2014nm from MRY>ITO ferry pilot makes it 2001nm in Cessna 310 before running out of fuel and ditching.

Title says most of it except he knew he had a problem an hour out and called the USCG

And their Rescue chopper was waiting when he hull loss'ed the Cessna 310 by salt water immersion....

Nice job ditching it on camera though...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt0K1OwlKQM


http://nycaviation.com/2011/10...running-out-of-fuel/

Nice job by all!

I don't know about you but to me "nice job" would end with the plane he's being paid to ferry ending up in re-useable condition on the tarmac at Hilo, NOT under a couple miles worth of pacific ocean.

I know the old aviation that "any landing you can walk away from is a good landing"

And the other one that states "A superb landing is one after which the aircraft is still useable"

a "Ditching" is not a landing... it sorta... well it lacks LAND!

I suppose that "Swim away from" is the functional equivalent of "Walk away from"?

Sounds like pi-- poor fuel management to me. Who pays for his mistake, if you say the U.S. taxpayer, you are wrong, let the dumb bastid DROWN.

Now now boys. There are very few light aircraft, long range ferry pilots who haven't had a near miss or a complete fail on fuel. And I know more than a couple who've had a swim or two.

The problem being of course that the fuel is so tight on a mainland to Hawaii leg in a light twin that it doesn't take much of a wind bust for somebody to get wet.

However that being said my point was that the guy did a nice smooth job of ditching and the Coasties did a nice smooth job of rescuing.

You guys are aware that Mainland-Hawaii is the longest over water leg on the planet, right? When you are PET between SFO and ITO you are as far off shore as you can be anywhere on Mother Earth. That is kind of a lonely feeling when you realize that your wind was forecast wrong by 20 or 30 knots and you don't have enough go juice to get back. So you push on hoping for a break, usually you get one and have just enough gas to get on dry ground sometimes you don't. Not really one of those situations where we can sit in our nice cozy chairs in front of our computers and scream LOUSY PILOT!

The really nice thing about having to ditch in or near US territorial waters is that somebody will come and fish you out and take you to a nice dry place. MOST other countries..Not so much.

I had a buddy who ditched off the coast of Portugal. Fortunately there was a USAF C-130 in the area who dropped him a raft and some gear. It took the Portuguese almost 9 hours to come and get him and he was less than 40 miles off shore.

quote:

You guys are aware that Mainland-Hawaii is the longest over water leg on the planet, right? When you are PET between SFO and ITO you are as far off shore as you can be anywhere on Mother Earth. That is kind of a lonely feeling when you realize that your wind was forecast wrong by 20 or 30 knots and you don't have enough go juice to get back. So you push on hoping for a break, usually you get one and have just enough gas to get on dry ground sometimes you don't. Not really one of those situations where we can sit in our nice cozy chairs in front of our computers and scream LOUSY PILOT!

Absolutely right! Nowhere to go. And he did a fine job in a substantial sea. I would hate to have to land a PBY in that.

it definatly did look like sea conditions that I wouldn't want to be boating in let alone try to ditch in...

MY point was that there is either "do" or "don't do" "try" isn't strictly relevant.

In his favor he was willing to admit he had a problem early enough so the USCG could be "on station" but I have to wonder if he was only 13miles out could he have actually made it?


BTW, I'd argue against there being anything "nice" about ditching no matter WHO is waiting to rescue you, because the majority of pilots that have tried ditching and didn't end up piloting their aircraft all the way to the sea floor is a smaller number than I'd care to bet on.

Not being a pilot or knowing much about A/C fuel consumption, how many gallons would have been required to save him? How much does this twin carry?

quote:

Originally posted by Brice:
Not being a pilot or knowing much about A/C fuel consumption, how many gallons would have been required to save him? How much does this twin carry?

Brice,

That looked like an R model Cessna-310. So it should be powered by a pair of Continental IO-520's. So not knowing if it was turbo charged or not I'll tell you that under normal conditions it should burn about 28 to 32 gallons per hour.

If my memory serves me right the 310-R holds about 170 gallons of fuel in the standard configuration. He would have been tanked with extra fuel tanks for the ferry flight and probably would have had about 430 or so gallons on board. Maybe more. That would be 2,580 lbs of fuel which would put him over max gross takeoff weight which is perfectly normal for a long range ferry flight. And it would also cause him to burn more fuel initially until his weight gets down to normal.

A couple of things to consider here though.

First if you are going to ditch it's always better to do it under power than dead stick. So if you know you are not going to make land you do exactly what this guy did. You set up a rendezvous with your SAR guys and ditch under full control on scene with the rescuers standing by.

The assumption is that he ran out of gas due to poor preflight planning or some other pilot error. How do we know he was able to access all of his fuel supply? It isn't uncommon to not be able to access some of your fuel due to various malfunctions in the tanks or valves. I.E. you can "run out" of gas with 40 or 50 gallons on board that you can't get to.

That happens all to often.

quote:

The assumption is that he ran out of gas due to poor preflight planning or some other pilot error. How do we know he was able to access all of his fuel supply? It isn't uncommon to not be able to access some of your fuel due to various malfunctions in the tanks or valves. I.E. you can "run out" of gas with 40 or 50 gallons on board that you can't get to.

Yeah, We had stopped to fuel a Herc at Santa Maria in the Azores and ran into a guy in a Navajo Chieftain who had that precise problem. He had internal fuel sufficient to make Lisbon, but couldn't get one 50 gallon tank to feed and was stuck at Santa Maria in the middle of the night with no maintenance. Our FE tried to help him, but couldn't fix it. I often have wondered how he eventually made out,

Light aircraft overwater ferry pilots have smarts and big balls.

quote:

Originally posted by Brice:
Not being a pilot or knowing much about A/C fuel consumption, how many gallons would have been required to save him? How much does this twin carry?

I'm suspecting that the issue was not that he didn't have enough fuel to make it but rather he didn't KNOW if he had enough fuel to make it
and rather than try to "tough it out" to Hilo and run out of fuel on final and pitching it short of the runway isn't as risky as making an attempt at ditching... but frankly not by a big difference.

How much fuel? assured access to another 3-5 gallons would have been more than enough to make the field, as he was no more than 5min from touchdown.

quote:

I'm suspecting that the issue was not that he didn't have enough fuel to make it but rather he didn't KNOW if he had enough fuel to make it
and rather than try to "tough it out" to Hilo and run out of fuel on final and pitching it short of the runway isn't as risky as making an attempt at ditching... but frankly not by a big difference.

If I was in that situation I'd climb as high as I could try and make the field and be set up for a dead stick with lots of altitude in case they choked. I'm thinking that is what just about any experienced pilot would do unless they absolutely had no other option but to ditch.

I spent four years flying a Q and then an R model 310 on a Canceled Check run. That fellow did a fine job. Something when wrong, either broke or winds stronger than forecasted. The airplane has the glide of a rock. Of the two models I flown, I liked the Q better. Great airplane never the less. They don't make them anymore. So when you wreck one its a real loss. Most of the 310 I see around have been rode hard, I was putting on 1300 hours a year on the ones I was flying, and I had a reasonable run. The other guy in the company was flying a full 8 hours a night every night 5 days a week and he did it for almost 15 years, before the rule change. He was the go to guy on the 310's. All he needed was another 40 or so gallons in the tanks. Those are the breaks.

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I was putting on 1300 hours a year on the ones I was flying, and I had a reasonable run. The other guy in the company was flying a full 8 hours a night every night 5 days a week and he did it for almost 15 years, before the rule change.

HEYSUS CHRISTO MAN!@!

Just thinking about 40 hours a week in a C-310 gives me a headache!

You think? It was a job, got paid by the flight hour, something like 16 an hour. I left it for a job in Alaska flying PA-32's for 20% of what the airplane made per hour. Flew my backside off 8 hours a day did that till the rule change in the late 1980s. Was making a good bunch of money doing it, till the change then it was a huge pay cut. Now they look for guys to fly for 50 a flight hour, you are limited to 1400 hours a year or 1200 depending on what rule you are governed by either un scheduled or scheduled most would not even come close to those numbers. 800 to 1000 hours is about all you can expect, Ok money in the 1980's now its just something better than unemployment. I sent a resume never the less. The sooner I can get out of CT the better and happier I am going to be.

George,

Back in the bad old days I had some 180+ hour months flying a C-207 in Alaska.

I can't stand to do much more than 85 hours in a month now days. Airline flying has burned me out. Of course it ain't the flying so much as all the other crapola that goes with it. TSA, bad hotels, waiting for the hotel van, menopausal flight attendant, both male and female, time zones galore, ground stops, security issues, newbie controllers, late decent clearances, deicing, dick head management, SOP changes every week,that is the kind of stuff that adds up on you after the years.

Gee and I though it was just me, I had a few of those 180 hour a months flying Cessna 206's and PA-32's. I use to fly for a guy that loved you if you did that much in a month and thought you were a lazy good for nothing if you flew less. I had a 6 month period, when for some reason we were short a couple of pilots and I was doing just over 200 hours a month, talk about a grind. Made some decent money for the time, but dam it was tough. Eat sleep work. Now I don't think I could support myself flying out in Bush alaska just doing 85 hours a month for what they pay they guys these days, they start around 35 an hour with cost of living being what it is these days. Plenty of young pilots around to take that. I don't have a problem with it, just I like to make some more money to make up for my losses to my Retirement Account. As you know the country is in a real mess.