.. At least they will know exactly where I am..
If you're on the way down and have lots of spare time you could do it. It avoids the very long shot chance that it would not trigger on impact. I would not bother.
Well ... it's line of sight so if you are in the air, the summary report would be "ELT detected somewhere in the southeastern US." Not too useful. "ELT detected somewhere in western Tennesee" is even a little hard to work with. With no SARSAT monitoring, the location of an active 121.5-only ELT can be a really big question mark.
You're probably aware of this but I'll mention it anyways. Generally activating such a PLB involves you extending the antenna. The antenna on such a device is rather fragile and you run a large risk of busting it while trying to do this in a hurry. They also are going to need a decent line of sight to the sky to be effective. Because of the above reasons the manufacturers of said devices generally highly discourage one from activating them until you're on the ground. Just too much of a chance you'll break it and minimal chance it'll help you.
Understand. From my view the likelihood that the thing is going to be effective if you're completely incapacitated after an air activation is kind of minimal since there is a good chance you busted it or you're dead anyways. Even if you didn't bust it, it's relatively unlikely it ended up in a position that is going to provide a good signal for rescue.
Where did you get this idea? ELTs are extremely unreliable after accidents, primarily because of antenna damage. The unit might be wailing away, but not broadcasting a thing.
Agreed.. During the RV-7 crash out here last week the investigator in charge was supposed to turn off the ELT, which did NOT trip during the 100+G impact...
So we spend 3 days going though the plane.. 51 hours later, while locked in a secure hangar with no one around.... It goes off...
I'm not sure I understand your question. The stats I have seen IIRC are that ELTs work something like 60% of the time. A big factor in this is the violence of the crash; sometimes the ELT is simply destroyed by impact or fire.
...Not trick enough.
.
...
Agreed on the "not trick enough"
To use the legal term I have concluded" beyond reasonable doubt" what failed...
But... I will wait till the NTSB releases their probably cause so as to not influence their conclusion...
Interesting. What was your source for the claimed 12% rate? "... it works only 12 percent of the time ..." Can you provide a citation or a link?
Oh hell, that was 11 years ago. My recollection is that I did an exhaustive review of the accident investigation forms, which have a box the investigator checks that indicates whether the ELT activated or not. Seems to me I then did a cross-check with an internal FAA study.
Just for grins, I spent a few minutes looking at Google results on "emergency locator transmitter aircraft success rate." (I am smoking some ribs and have to hang around the house anyway. :wink2: )
Certainly to the occupants, but many people still want the aircraft found -- most notably the families. And, during the search, you don't know that the crash was non-survivable.
From what little I have read, it looks like they are heading to ADS-B being the answer. If every track has positive aircraft identification and is recorded, then in theory no airplane can be lost.
Yup. Except I want a real PLB, not a piece of consumer electronics. No monthly costs then, and you may also avoid something like this: ".... pilot who carried a personal locator, deployed it, the locator company reported it, and they still didn't get looked for until the next day. ..." To be fair, that could also have been due to nightfall, but I like the fact that my (McMurdo) PLB is directly linked to SARSAT/COSPAS and, through them, to AFRCC. I also have AFRCC's number in my cell phone.
