{"id":231,"date":"2015-01-21T20:58:11","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T20:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/21\/book-review-blue-water-ditching-training-professional-crewmembers-for-the-unthinkable-disaster\/"},"modified":"2018-07-06T15:05:17","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T15:05:17","slug":"book-review-blue-water-ditching-training-professional-crewmembers-for-the-unthinkable-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/book-review-blue-water-ditching-training-professional-crewmembers-for-the-unthinkable-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review \u2013 Blue Water Ditching: Training Professional Crewmembers for the Unthinkable Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

The crew was able to get one engine restarted at 10,000 feet and landed safety in Sarasota, FL. The incident was a wakeup call to prepare for what I previously thought was an impossibility. In Captain Dave Montgomery\u2019s book Blue Water Ditching: Training Professional Crewmembers for the Unthinkable Disaster<\/i><\/a>,\u00a0he calculates there are over 1 million blue water flights worldwide per year. Even with the superb reliability of our aircraft today, fate and Mother Nature can conspire to make the unthinkable a possibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

The book goes beyond traditional training programs in getting you to chair fly how to prepare for a ditching. The contents are not aircraft\u2011specific, so be prepared to critically think how you can apply the principles to the aircraft you fly. For example, what configuration should you ditch in (gear up or down, flaps up or down) and how do you manually turn on your 406 MHz ELT?<\/span><\/p>\n

Although not a blue water ditching, chair flying to prepare for the impossible is exactly what saved the lives of the crew of N691TA when faced with a dual-engine flameout 18 months after the crew of N741TA and successfully dead sticked their aircraft into Jacksonville, FL.<\/span><\/p>\n

I recommend the book as a tool to help you mentally prepare for what probably will never happen; but if it does, preparation will significantly increase your odds of a successful ditching.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"BookThe crew of Beechjet N455CW were at FL410 on Q100 crossing the Gulf of Mexico. Crossing REMIS intersection Air Traffic Control cleared the aircraft for a decent to FL330. Upon initial power reduction, both engines flamed out<\/a>. Quoting Ernest Gann from his book Fate is the Hunter<\/i> \u201csome totally unrecognizable genie has once again unbuttoned his pants and urinated on the pillars of science.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The nearest shore was well beyond the gliding distance of the aircraft. There was no checklist for a dual engine flameout and, according to the Aircraft Flight Manual, the aircraft was not approved for ditching. The crew were relegated to being test pilots. One of the first priorities was to load shed, which brought up the question of which engines ignitors were on the emergency bus to attempt a restart. Should you increase airspeed to try a windmilling start or try to increase glide range and use battery power to attempt a restart?<\/span><\/p>\n

The crew faced these questions to ponder, and many more, in an emergency with no discretionary time. As Chuck Yeager once said \u201cThere was not time to get in shape, no time to study the things you should have known all along, no time to relearn your procedures.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[137],"class_list":["post-231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-beechjet-n455cwboth-engines-flamed-outernest-gannfate-is-the-hunterditchingcaptain-dave-montgomeryblue-water-ditching-training-professional-crewmembers-for-the-unthinkable-disastern691tan741ta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":649,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions\/649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aircrewacademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}