Nobody likes to be on the receiving end of a harangue and we’ll wager that not many of us like delivering them, either. And thats the problem with magazine articles reviewing aviation safety equipment. What starts out as friendly advice on buying safety gear devolves into a lecture from your Aunt Hazel on the perils of running outside with your hair wet and, oh, by the way, when are you going to get a real job and stop hanging out with those loser friends of yours? With this in mind, were going to alter course and withdraw our previous recommendation that every GA airplane should have personal flotation devices as standard equipment. The fact that few actually do shows how seriously owners take this suggestion. So heres our revised thinking: If you have no significant overwater risk, spend your money on training, a backup gyro or a fire extinguisher-any of which youre more likely to need than a life vest.
But if your exposure to landing in the water is substantial, PFDs ought to be on your list of required basic gear. Whats substantial risk? Thats eye-of-the-beholder territory. Crossing the Mississippi at 1000 feet or Delaware Bay at 5000 feet twice a year might not qualify.
But weekly flights to Catalina, jaunts to the Bahamas or coastal forays in Florida or the Great Lakes certainly do. There’s a gray zone between these two extremes bounded by your budget and how much of it you wish to spend on being prepared with equipment you may never need. If budgets don’t limit your safety considerations, buy the best PFDs you can find, one for each seat.
There are dozens of choices in the aviation PFD market, many of them unsuitable for the nature of GA overwater flying. if that sounds like were dismissing an entire class of perfectly good products, in a sense, we are. We reached this conclusion during our research following a conversation with richard Switlik, whose Switlik parachute Company makes a line of well-regarded safety equipment, including pFDs. Switlik contends that for piston GA flying, flotation equipment is useful only if its immediately available when needed and that argues for actually wearing it during the overwater legs.