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In 1918, the Royal Air Force performed testing to examine what equipment would be needed to safely land a fighter aircraft in the water without floats or external flotation bags. The movies are pretty entertaining
I know many folks aren't on Facebook, but I couldn't find this at a more-public source....
https://www.facebook.com/mashtabekb/...9534489001109/
Ron Wanttaja
My comments:
1. Wonder how many Camels and Snipes they went through during this testing? I saw at least two separate S/Ns for the Camels (B6229 and B3878)
2. Wonder if they gave the pilot a shoulder harness? I don't believe they were standard on British planes back then...many pilots' accounts of crashes including smacking their heads into the gun butts or instrument panel during a crash. IIRC, they even put cushioning on the forward cockpit, in some cases.
3. One of the pilots, at least, looked like they were wearing civilian clothing. It'd be nice to believe that a poor RAF pilot wasn't ORDERED to do this... :-)
4. None of the pilots, that I saw, were wearing any sort of flotation device, such as a life vest. Camel's cockpit was pretty tight, there may not have been enough room.
5. Speaking of the pilots, I'm surprised they could float at ALL... with the big, brass [formal dances] it took to fly tests like that.....
Ron Wanttaja
Shoulder harnesses were pretty much standard equipment by 1918.