Scattering Ashes

Several years ago our club supported a guest ride in a 2-33 with the
realtive handling the scattering. The ashes were in a screw top jar. The
flight was conducted with the passenger window down from launch. After
release, with 55 kts on the nose, the guest held the jar a max arms length
out the window, unscrewed the lid and "poof" ! The cloud of ash entered the
cockpit and despite having the vent open wide - seemed to be very present!
After landing we saw that the side of the plane was evenly coated with ash
as well! Not a good situation and the issue of washing the plane off
afterwards - when the guest had gone - was still quite uncomfortable.

Based on the above, I would not be inclined to do this at all. If it was
absolutly mandatory to do the spreading from an airplane, I might consider
having the remains in a piece of loosely folded tissue paper. The entire
pack would be pitched from the plane. Maybe with enough of a flip out the
vent, the pack would open at some distance from the fuselage - worst case is
the pack would lightly fall to the ground?


"Chuck Patterson" wrote in message
...
A friend died earlier this year and his widow has asked
that we scatter his ashes from a sailplane, preferably
an ASK 21. Does anyone have experience with this? Visions
of various ash scattering scenes from the movies come
to mind - scenes that I do not wish to reenact.

We have considered running a tube out the window thinking
that the ashes would be sucked out (have not tried
this yet). We have tried, using a bag of dirt, just
pushing the bag out the window and trying to get it
to empty into the airstream. That did not work. The
thought of flying without the canopy so the bag could
be more easily emptied in the airstream came to mind,
but I do not believe that operations without a canopy
are approved in the flight manual, and it might just
make an even bigger mess.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Chuck