Well, I believe Carl Herold that an outlanding is an emergency.

And keep in mind I only activate the EPIRB for unobserved
outlandings (nobody around, no farmers, no roads
with people, etc.)

And it's on for at most maybe a few minutes.

The one time I had it on for more than a few minutes, I was a bit busy.
When I called FSS, they said "OK, we got a confirmation
on an ELT just a few minutes ago. Thanks."

So I don't think this is a huge problem. Having an
installed one in a trailer beeping away for hours, now that
is a different matter...

I guess I've also made maybe a dozen precautionary
ATC calls and landings in power planes in several thousands
of flights. The ATC guys have never seemed out of sorts about
it, and they'd rather have a heads up ahead of time and have
it turn out ok, instead of the opposite.

I personally don't think pilots declare emergencies enough.
A few days ago, a malibu pilot here at Palo Alto had
high oil temp and didn't declare, and tried to land here.
Too high, too fast, rolled the thing off the end, destroyed
it and injured herself. Could have just declared an emergency and landed
at Oakland instead (long, wide runway, lots of fire trucks).

I'm not saying push the button on the ELT for every landing.
I'm saying if there is nodoby watching you land, and
you aren't 100% sure of a safe outcome, flip it on at
1000ft, and afterwards flip it off.

A field with grass, potential drainage pipes, wires, and
a narrow road with a tree halfway down it for me constitutes
an exciting landout. If you are more skilled, your results may vary...

In article ,
Martin Gregory wrote:
Mark James Boyd wrote:
Tim Mara wrote:

Personal ELT's and EPIRB units require you to activate them manually....if
you're still, after you crash.... able to!


I've activated my ELT not after, but BEFORE any potential
unwitnessed landing. At pattern altitude for an off-field
landing, I've always considered this an emergency. So I pop it
on. If I land safely and happily, I shut it off.

You mentioned this before, and it made me wonder.

When I bought mine there were lots of cautions in the instructions
about _not_ activating it unless it was really an emergency.

I have to admit I don't know exactly what the consequences of
activating it will be in the short term. I thought that the result
would be pretty immediate alarm bells souding in cockpits of
overhead jets listening in 121.5.

If I knew that as I approached an outlanding and activated my ELT
I'd be sending every overhead jet crew into an emergency response mode,
I would not like to do that at all. One could almost say "downright
irresponsible". Every weekend day there are people making outlandings
all over the country!

Every XC flight I make I am prepared to and expect to outland. That
is part of what XC flying is about (in a country where you don't plan
to XC from airport to airport, at least)

It would not be fair to carry the expectation that therefore I am prepared to
disturb flight crews every weekend just in case I botch an outlanding...

... so how do you reconcile this in your mind?

Martin.

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Mark J. Boyd