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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 2334.PDF
FLIGHT, 23 November 1951 RAFTS AND DINGHIES Modern AirjSea Rescue Techniques and Equipment Reviewed in a Lecture 653 UNUSUAL in its subject and informative in its pre-sentation, a paper on air/sea rescue equipment wasrecently delivered to members of the Society of Licensed Aeronautical Engineers by Mr. D. K. Hailstone of the R.F.D. Co., Ltd. The lecture was given at the Hamble H.Q. of Air Service Training, Ltd., where a swim- ming-pool enabled the speaker to give practical demon- strations of several items of the equipment he described. A digest of the lecture follows. Mr. Hailstone began by saying that he proposed to consider air/sea rescue and survival as part of the overall rescue system. Air rescue in its widest sense was, of course, universal, ranging over Arctic, desert, jungle, mountains and sea in search of those in distress, whatever the cause. It must be realized that even the great airlifts of recent years had been in the nature of rescue services to succour those cut off from other means of transport. In the last war, British air/sea rescue units in Europe, the Middle East and Indian theatres saved 14,700 persons; the A.S.R. organization in the United Kingdom saved roughly one-third of all those who fell into the sea. After the war, several committees were set up to analyse the experience of the past. At the beginning of the war resources had been very limited. Dinghies available had been of the circular types, such as the "H," and "K" one-man models copied from the German single-seat raft. Out-dated dinghies of these types were still in use today, their design having been changed very little. The rescue organization was not fofmed until February, 1941—already two years too late. Development of rubber- proofed fabric life-rafts was begun by R. F. Dagnall, founder of the R.F.D. Co., in 1917, and his circular notation gear ultimately developed into the circular rafts used at the outbreak of war. In 1937 the R.A.F. adopted automatic CO2 cartridge actuating gear, again developed by R.F.D. In 1927 Hubert Scott-Paine had started the design and construction of hard-chine air/sea rescue launches, and we had other good aids in the flying-boat, amphibious aircraft, and parachutes. These four items, dinghies, launches, aircraft and parachutes, formed the hard core round which the A.S.R. services were formed and developed. The following figures would give an indication of the results achieved in 1941 : R.A.F. Walrus amphibians saved 13 lives, R.A.F. high-speed launches saved 147, R.A.F. seaplane tenders 8, R.N. rescue launches 194, and R.N. seaplane-tender safety boats 10. The R.N.L.I., called out by A.S.R.S., saved 34 lives. Some of those survivors who reached the water and inflated their rafts were never found and many who were found were dead due to the effects of exposure, shock and wounds. A con- siderable portion of these could have been saved if we had had present-day equipment available. Airline Applications After the war it was left to I.C.A.O. (then known as P.I.C.A.O.) to see that the survival lessons should be applied as far as com- mercially possible to civil aviation, and they drew up an ambitious scheme, the outcome of the final reports of the Search and Rescue Committee. To implement this scheme it was arranged that all countries taking part should contribute something towards search and rescue facilities. The larger countries, with extensive coast- lines, were to provide very-long-range aircraft; long-range, medium-range and short-range aircraft; rescue boats for limited search; rescue vessels for ocean work; land rescue units; para- chute rescue units; and, of course, rescue co-ordination centres were to be established. Smaller countries were to provide services in proportion to their means. This organization was to replace the military organizations which had been very much curtailed at the end of the war. During the last 125 years, continued the lecturer, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution saved 76,000 lives, in spite of all that had been done to make sea travel safe. It was, therefore, as well to assume that there would be casualties in the air even in peace- time and adequate arrangements must be made to deal with them. Discussing first the design of aircraft themselves, Mr. Hailstone said that from the safety angle, the designer must provide adequate escape hatches and stowages in the wings or fuselage for dinghies, ?nd he must also provide against fire. Seats had to be consideredm the matter of providing against deceleration, and lifejacket stowages provided. The ditching characteristics of the aircraft Were also to be taken into consideration. As regards deceleration, the human frame could survive very nigh deceleration provided it was adequately braced and supported. During the war aircraft crews, when ditching, were told to place themselves with their backs against bulkheads, and face the rear of the aircraft. It would appear that this was the best way to survive a crash, and it was high time that our civil airlines adopted rearward-facing seats as already in service in Transport Command. Escape from an aircraft after ditching might be undertaken either before or after the crash. The parachute and ejector seat were provided for military personnel, but civil aircraft must still rely on escape hatches for use after the impact, and these should be large and adequate in number. It must be borne in mind that it was not always convenient to open the door of a ditched aircraft, since this might result in immediate flooding and sinking. Many factors influenced the severity of the ditching, such as the skill of the pilot; the state of the sea, and wind; the condition of the aircraft before impact; and its shape and strength. A low- or mid-wing large aircraft was a better ditcher than a high-wing type; a sharply upswept nose was a disadvantage; a fighter with a low thin wing could be expected to dive violendy on impact; large aircraft were inclined to break forward and aft of the wing. The wing provided a great deal of buoyancy, particularly when fuel had been used up. After ditching, the airframe was bound to be extensively damaged and water nearly always entered rapidly, the inrush breaking down bulkheads, etc., and further weakening the structure. It was, therefore, important to provide as many escape-hatches as possible. Valise-stowed equipment tended to get left behind and it was, therefore, important that blow-out stowages should be built into the fuselage or wings. Life-jacket Design Turning to equipment for personnel, Mr. Hailstone said that die first necessity was the life-jacket. In military aircraft these are always worn by the crew, but in passenger types the normal stowage was under the. seat. The operating requirement for both types was that the wearer should be kept in the best attitude for survival, whether conscious or unconscious. Further aids were provided by a light, to enable survivors to be located in darkness and to keep together easily, and a whisde to attract attention. A requirement of the civil jacket was that it should be easily put on by untrained personnel; this, thought the lecturer, had been achieved very well in the R.F.D. Type 50 C Mk. II jacket. For Service personnel, other factors have to be taken into consideration, such as parachute harness, pressure waistcoats, helicopter lift, attachment to dinghies and fluoroscine-dye markers. These requirements had been met by the Type 51 AF Mk. I. Re-emphasizing that many personnel have been lost through lack of exposure protection, Mr. Hailstone went on to speak of the R.F.D. Universal life-rafts [the subject of a description in Flight of October 5th] which have an automatically inflatable canopy, so that the occupants are protected from the elements the moment they board the raft, and an inflatable floor which insulates them from the chilling effects of the sea. In the Arctic, said the lecturer, closing all the canopy flaps would reduce loss of body warmth, while in the tropics protection from sun-glare prevented loss of moisture in the body and the consequent demand for water. An occupant of a military aircraft who made a parachute descent had his dinghy attached to him, usually in a seat-type pack. This had, in the past, been the "K" type, and in the newer forms of ejection seat an exposure suit has been packed with the dinghy. Since this exposure suit has been almost impossible to don, said Mr. Hailstone, R.F.D. had built exposure-protection into their latest raft, which had an inflatable floor and an inflatable hood and apron, thus ensuring that the occupant has a barrier of still air between himself and the elements. All aircraft, continued the lecturer, should be equipped with a dinghy radio transmitter ("Gibson Girl") and an emergency pack for each dinghy, containing such items as communications equipment (signalling torch, pyretechnics, heliograph and radar oscillator); water, or means of making sea-water drinkable; and rations, first-aid outfits, and other small ancillary items. After listing the basic life-raft equipment (paddles, drogue, rescue line, etc.), Mr. Hailstone mentioned some aspects of pro- cedure once a raft was boarded. If there was more than one raft, all should, as far as possible, be secured together, and arrangements made for transmitting with the portable transmitter. The aerial could be flown either with a hydrogen balloon or with a kite, depending on the force of the wind. The radar oscillator, if carried in the emergency pack, should also be started. A watch should be set, and visual signalling equipment kept ready to hand. The emergency pack would contain a limited number of tins
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