... our Flight Attendants will be coming through the cabin with a selection of emergency equipment.
Today I took a class for my Flight Test Clearance - basically what I need to know to be an engineer on a test flight.
Most of it was pretty straightforward - here's how to use the interphone, the TD does this and the Analysis Engineer does that, the Command Pilot is God (unless the FAA is aboard, in which case he's demoted slightly), signs and symptoms of hypoxia, .... and then they took us over and showed us the emergency gear.
Oh, Zarth, Azel, and all their minions...
Lifejackets, OK. Plenty of planes overshoot the runway a little and land in the drink. You want to make the escape slide double as a raft? Well, the design isn't really that far off to begin with, now is it. Fire extinguishers? Oxygen? Good things to have aboard. Crash axe? Kindof traditional, and potentially useful. But then:
"Right, now here's the sea anchor for the liferaft..." "This is a water-powered flashlight..." "This is the handpump for the liferaft..." "This signaling mirror can be used..." "Now, if your raft has a leak this patch kit..." "The desalination tablets will each produce..." "This type of emergency ration has been described as having all the flavor and texture of dry cardboard." Kindof like the rest of airline food. I wonder if the flight attendants charge you $5 for it?
Excuse me, has ANYONE ever survived the crash of a commercial widebody in deep water? Do we really need to carry a sea anchor for the liferaft? I mean, weight is everything in this business. We'll spend a confidential but significant amount of money to take a single pound of weight off an airplane.
I think it was the sponges for mopping up the water in the liferafts that really blew my mind. I mean, if your plane goes down in the middle of the ocean and you somehow get both yourself and a liferaft out the door before it sinks is a little water really going to bother you? Even if you get it dry, is it going to stay dry? I won't even get started on the knife they include because you've got to tie the raft to the plane so it won't sink before it inflates, but then you've got to cut it loose before the PLANE sinks.
After the guy got done with his presentation I overheard one of my class mates ask "But what if you crash on a mountain?"
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To learn a little more read DEEP survival. It's a great book and has SEVERAL stories about people surviving plane crashes and weeks or so at sea. All that stuff, MIGHT do something...provided you've got the will power not to go crazy and walk over the side of the boat...
I'm not questioning the utility of the equipment in the event of a deep-water survival situation, I'm questioning the odds of such a situation arising on a commercial widebody. If a guy flying a single-engine plane at relatively low altitude over the Pacific wants to pack along a raft and supplies, he's probably making a reasonable trade. He's more likely to have to attempt to ditch, more likely to succeed, and more likely to do so in circumstances where a delayed or minimal rescue effort is likely.
Also, remember that if that weight wasn't used for emergency equipment we'd use it for something else.
Like putting the damn olives back on that crummy salad you give me!!!!
Exactly!
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