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That's hardly the point here, as the original estimate I provided of 15 minutes spent beyond gliding distance was merely an off-the-cuff estimate. Yeah, the lake is a touch above sea level (maybe 600ft?), but the plane can easily climb above 12,000 feet as well. Given those two considerations...

Okay, let me elaborate on my math here: Measuring crossing distances of Lake Michigan show distances of roughly 50-75NM from airport to airport, if the lake is crossed in the middle. If we average those distances we can say that the lake is 62.5 NM across. If you lost your engine at the exact...

You can probably save on a bit of the snark, as most of the answers to your questions were already contained in my other posts. Clearly Lake Erie isn't a pond. I grew up three miles from there, as I stated above, and boated on it as a kid on a very regular basis. People also refer to the...

It probably simply hits closer to home because you realize how easily it could have been your own cousin. It takes away anonymity from this situation, essentially.

I see this in my industry on a regular basis as well. It still baffles me that people will work so hard to get somewhere in their career, only to throw it all down the drain.

Sad news, especially within the first responder community.

I always find this kind of discussion to be an entertaining one. For a lot of people there seems to be some real "pride" to be found in having soloed with less time than someone else. I'm hardly the grizzled veteran of aviation, but I always try to tell new people not to get obsessed with...

Of course, the lakes are quite a bit warmer in July, and arguably quite survivable in those temperatures. I think that's where it comes down to the debate over water temperature. If you go down in the great lakes in January, you're going to be in a bad way, and if you want ANY hope of survival...

There's nothing B.S. about it, nor is it an issue of misplaced bravado. An engine failure on a single is always going to be a big deal, but bodies of water are hardly the worst possible option if the engine decides to go to lunch on you. I also grew up on Lake Erie's south shore, and did my...

I believe I was at 11.9 hours. Class D field with a Part 141 university program.

Now, I could see myself going across the Great Lakes, but that's quite a story there. A C150 across the ocean is an ambitious undertaking, for sure.

I agree that we need more specifics to know… and I'm not aircraft pricing expert, so don't expect great answers from me. But, price always matters. I have a friend who is looking at a $4K airplane that is WAY out of annual and just sitting on the field because the owner died 5-10 years ago...

That was definitely my single biggest consideration as well. I've jumped in Lake Erie in January, and I've been dumped from whitewater rafts into 40 degree water in the past… cold water will kill you faster than anything else in a ditching. I should also note that I intentionally left those...

Going into a Class C on a night flight a number of years ago in a C-152 I was asked to run as fast as I could due to a 747 coming in behind me. I kept that little tin can firewalled until I hit the fence, and then floated for a while down the enormous runway that airport offered. On the...

I'm just curious about where you all stand on your opinions about water crossings in small airplanes. I stumbled onto a thread of this type on another aviation forum recently, and was surprised to see how many people were 100% against crossing the great lakes in a single engine aircraft. I'll...

Im guessing the difficulty is simple, and probably exists in the misuse of the acronym "IFR". I think a lot of folks erroneously read the "under IFR" part of the regs as "under IMC", rather than reading it as it is intended. It seems clear that it is saying: 'you can't be the PIC under...

I'm 36, and if I could realistically retire today, I would. I never understood people who can't find things to do in retirement... It must be a tragically boring existence. I have so many things I'd like to do, and I never feel like I have enough time to do them. At age 55 I can take a 70%...

Lol... Now you're describing a typical flight in my department's helicopter. It's really fun from the TFO seat (left seat - observer position) when you're doing them on a hot summer day flying with the doors off!

Well... All of my flying seems rather lame by comparison.

I never update early on... It always seems better to let other people discover the bugs first.