On 28 Oct, 16:31, Gordon wrote:
On Oct 28, 7:37*am, "a425couple" wrote:





"Eugene Griessel" wrote in message...
*"a425couple" wrote:
In 2001 a US reconisance plane fell into Chinese
hands for full examination.
If pilot Osburn had tried to fly as far as he could
toward an 'authorized' airport and had to 'ditch'
in the open ocean, what were the chances of
the 24 crew surviving?

What a question. *If you are in a head-on collision with another car
what are your chances of surviving? *

I'm sorry you do not like it.

They range from 0% to 100%, don't they? *

The reason I asked it on these newsgroups, is that I thought
there might be some who could give historical information
to pin it down better than "from 0% to 100%".

He was able to control it well enough to fly it 70 miles
and land it at an airport (Red Chinese).
Have any Orions been 'ditched' *i.e. controled landings
on water?

If he ditched well the thing should have floated long enough
for the crew to take to the dinghies. *Thereafter it would have been a
case of how far away (and how competent) was the rescue. *If he made a
dog's mess of the ditching they could have all gone down with it.
It's a low-wing aircraft so it should ditch fairly well and float well
too. *Sea-state permitting of course. *A reasonably competent pilot
should have been able to handle it if he sea was playing along.
Eugene L Griessel- Hide quoted text -

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yes, one did -- all (or nearly all) of the enlisted aircrew died when
they went down in the Northern Pacific. *The fallout for that event
was the requirement that all enlisted aircrews go to survival schools
and get some training before they end up in a raft (prior to that, it
was possible to bootstrap into aircrew status and not necessarily go
through the aircrew pipeline that would include all that).

The P-3 is not a very good platform for ditching -- relatively short
wings, long tail that would likely pitch you forward if you trying
aero-braking in surface effect at the final moment -- *I wouldn't do
it. *Personally, I would have had the crew bail out over land, radio
the Chinese that the aircraft was not controllable at slow speeds and
aim it for the nearest mountain. *Reverse engineering doesn't work
well with melted aluminum.

During my very limited time on P-3s (14 months), we had one really
exciting flight that lasted less than half an hour, trying to get all
the way airborne in a 3-engine, overloaded Orion on a 90-degree day.
We skimmed the lagoon, flying between ships on our way out to sea,
hoping we could get it all in hand. * Eventually, we got everything
sorted out, but in the meantime, we discussed ditching and ruled it
out -- we prepared for ditching but the likelihood was that we
wouldn't make it, so it was more "prepare to crash -- get out as best
you can and good luck" as opposed to "get the raft after we settle
into the water".

In a similar situation (balky helicopter nearing the point of falling
out of the sky) we had the choice to land on a Soviet aircraft carrier
(Novorosiisk) or ditching in the Northern Pacific -- the two pilots
voted for landing on the Soviet ship, delivering an intact modern
(cof) ASW helo into our enemies hands. *My rather loud dissenting vote
was that we should crash it into the bridge of the Novoro *(we had
intel that Admiral Gorchkov was on board - the modern era's version of
Admiral Doenitz or Isoroku Yamamoto), or anything else but to give it
to the damn Russians. * Fate intervened -- our tiny frigate realized
we were off the radio and likely in trouble and had doubled back to
reach us. *We got aboard, barely, and the helicopter never flew
again.

Ultimately, the pilot has responsibility for the safety of his crew --
but when it involves spyplanes or other strategic assets that would
obviously help the enemy, crews should understand that every effort
must be made to keep those aircraft out of the hands of the enemy. *I
was appalled by the EP-3 pilots decision to land in China..

v/r Gordon- Hide quoted text -

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Fascinating Gordon, thank you, However it leads to another question,
how easy is it to bale out of a P-3, especially the last man out?

Guy