"Sometimes you Get Wet"

S

SierraPilot123

Well-Known Member
In the latest 2007 issue of the "AOPA pilot" magazine there is an article about Ferry Pilots. They call it the last "Flight Frontier". They follow three seasoned ferry pilots who are delivering 2 Cessna 182 and 1 Cessna Caravan from California to Australia.

A little background:
One of the planes looses their engine power and is forced to ditch, hundreds of miles from an island or help. The other pilots radio help to the coast guard in CA, who sends a C-130 from Hawaii. The C-130 arrives 3 hours later; find him, drops a raft, circles for hours, until another C-130 arrives. They relay help to a Container Ship that turns around and returns towards the pilot to pick him up.

Other facts in the story: This same pilot (Gray) ditched 5 years earlier, 2.5 hrs east of Hawaii while ferrying a plane and had to be rescued by the coast guard. One of the other pilots on the same trip had to ditch again in mid June 2006.

Shipping by a container ship cost 30-50 Percent less money than ferrying an aircraft!!

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Does any of this sound ridiculous, unsafe and a waste of Coast Guard resources????

1. Why pay more money to ferry a single engine plane across a huge ocean

2. And as a result cause the Coast Guard to put their own crew in danger and spend lots and lots of money on 2 C-130s circling for hours, let alone the paper work that is involved. Oh ya and causing a huge container ship to turn around, come find a needle in a haystack and pick you a$$ up.

Full article here: http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/2007/pacific0702.html
 
So make ferrying airplanes out of the US illegal is your ultimate goal? To save USCG funding for what other type of operations? Non-US ships in trouble? We save them, we can't we save these guys?

So others may live.

The USCG doesn't get into the technicalities, they go, they save, and they bring back alive.

If you think this is a waste of funds, I'd love to know what you think about our countries other melding in other countries.
 
SierraPilot123 said:
1. Why pay more money to ferry a single engine plane across a huge ocean.
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Because it is easier...both logistically and logically. What if the purchasing party would lose thousands of dollars for each day it took to disassemble the airplane, pack it up, ship it, and reassemble it? How about the risks involved in screwing up something with the disassembly or reassembly. My friend's father is in the courier business for a reason; moving critical and sensitive items is NOT always done best by FedEx or the USPS. His clients pay a premium for it, but they are virtually guaranteed an on time and safe delivery, and he is the ONLY person to touch the items. There are trained professionals to fly trans-oceanic ferry flight. They do it safely on a weekly basis.
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
Because it is easier...both logistically and logically. What if the purchasing party would lose thousands of dollars for each day it took to disassemble the airplane, pack it up, ship it, and reassemble it? How about the risks involved in screwing up something with the disassembly or reassembly. My friend's father is in the courier business for a reason; moving critical and sensitive items is NOT always done best by FedEx or the USPS. His clients pay a premium for it, but they are virtually guaranteed an on time and safe delivery, and he is the ONLY person to touch the items. There are trained professionals to fly trans-oceanic ferry flight. They do it safely on a weekly basis.
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So, US taxpayers, the shipping company whose ship alters course, and all the companies depending on the cargo on that ship are on the hook to launch a rescue, so some guy (possibly some guy from another country) doesn't loose money?

Pretty weak argument if you ask me.
 
I see Sierra's point - I mean, it is an unnecessary risk. Like the yuppies who insist on trading their suit and ties for mountain climbing gear once a year, and - you guessed it, get trapped forcing men and women to risk their lives to save them. As a tax payer, it does sorta piss me off what we have to pay to save these fools.

A reasonable solution is an insurance policy for such events - one that refunds the U.S. government if you end up needing rescue while ferrying a plane, climbing a mountain, whatever. Maybe then more folks would put there plane in a box.
 
Tiger815 said:
So, US taxpayers, the shipping company whose ship alters course, and all the companies depending on the cargo on that ship are on the hook to launch a rescue, so some guy (possibly some guy from another country) doesn't loose money?

Pretty weak argument if you ask me.
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I don't want to see you driving on the highway ever again if you go by the "no ferry" policy. If you are involved in an accident, shut down the highway, cause officers to have to spend duty time in rerouting traffic, force business people to be late for meetings, cause firemen to come extract you from the car, cause the ambulance EMT and driver to miss lunch, make the tow truck driver go 20 miles out of his way, make your spouse take off work early...

Get my drift?
 
I did my initial multi training with Ray Clamback, who is a 'seasoned' ferry pilot, probably one of the ones in the AOPA article. Ray has gone into the Pacific twice, each time in Cherokees. It's a miracle that he survived.

It's almost impossible to get insurance for this kind of endeavour without bags of experience. Ray's done that trans-Pacific trip a couple of hundred times, and he carries all the gear in the world. In the first ditching everything went to the bottom - liferaft, EPIRB, survival gear.

For me what comes out of his experience is the brilliant capabilities of the USCG. In no other place on earth would someone in distress get the same level of help. Instead of grumbling about it, you blokes should take some pride that the USA maintains this superb capability.

As for US taxpayers picking up the bill ..... no issue. If a particular part of the world is the 'US backyard' then the US helps people in distress. Just like the Southern Ocean, for example, is Australia's backyard & thus Australia does what it can to assist (and has done so many times at great expense). There are international conventions in place obligating signatories to assist those in distress. USA is a signatory to SOLAS and IMO and their respective amendments and protocols.
 
Timmypig said:
I did my initial multi training with Ray Clamback, who is a 'seasoned' ferry pilot, probably one of the ones in the AOPA article. Ray has gone into the Pacific twice, each time in Cherokees. It's a miracle that he survived.
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Yep, he's the one in the article.

I think ferrying the plane isn't the safest way, but I do see the logic in it.

You get your plane in one peice (unless it's at the bottom of the ocean) and you KNOW you can trust it to fly (unless it's at the bottom of the ocean) after all it made it across the Pacific Ocean in one piece...

It takes a special type of pilot to fly a single engine GA plane across the ocean...
 
I am curious as to how this 2060 nm leg from Bakersfield to Hilo is accomplished in a 182. I though a 182 could only go 8-900 nm on economy cruise. Do they just turn that Cessna into a gas can?
 
I hope those of you complaining about the waste of taxpayer money bitch every time someone takes an IFR training flight. After all, that guy is using up resources and if he goes down, SAR assets have to be deployed.

I tell you what -- I'll bet if you asked the Coasties who deployed to save the folks who ended up in the drink, they'd all tell you where to go if you suggested that was a waste of taxpayer money.

And I don't think it'd be over to their house for dinner.

I think it takes some serious stones to do one of these ferry flights and I commend the pilots who do it.
 
Timmypig said:
And a dispensation to takeoff over gross as well, I think.
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Yes and no. The plane will be "over gross" if you compare it to gross weight listed in the POH, but it's still legal because the FAA will authorize a new, higher gross weight subject to certain limitations only for the ferry flight.

I believe there are a few types of planes flown in Alaska like this, too. They are identical to planes of the same make and model flown in the lower 48 states, but the FAA has allowed them to operate at higher gross weights in Alaska. Could anybody else give details of this?
 
In Alaska all (at least light) planes can take off at 115% of the MGTOW. It's in the FAR's but I'm too tired to look.
 
Does anyone really believe that if we made ferry flights across the ocean illegal, and made it illegal for yuppies to go mountain climbing, that our taxes would be reduced?...or that our tax money would be used for a "better purpose?
 
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