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Personal Flotation Devices: Wide Market Choice

If you fly one of the vast majority of general aviation aircraft, you can legally operate over any of the waters in and around the U.S. without any sort of flotation device aboard. The requirement to carry survival equipment for operations over water more than 50 miles from land set out in FAR 91.509 only applies to airplanes weighing over 12,500 pounds and turbojets. We bugsmasher operators don't have to carry so much as a set of water wings.

Rick Durden
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If you fly one of the vast majority of general aviation aircraft, you can legally operate over any of the waters in and around the U.S. without any sort of flotation device aboard. The requirement to carry survival equipment for operations over water more than 50 miles from land set out in FAR 91.509 only applies to airplanes weighing over 12,500 pounds and turbojets. We bugsmasher operators don’t have to carry so much as a set of water wings.

Rick Durden

Senior Editor Rick Durden has written for Aviation Consumer since 1994 and specializes in aviation law. Rick is an active CFII and holds an ATP with type ratings in the Douglas DC-3 and Cessna Citation. He is the author of The Thinking Pilot’s Flight Manual or, How to Survive Flying Little Airplanes and Have a Ball Doing It, Vols. 1 & 2.