Did (or maybe do) passenger transatlantic or transpacific aircraft (I'm thinking of typical a/c flown by major carriers) carry portable radio equipment to operate in a liferaft should the aircraft alight on water? In particular in the 1990's

From my username you may guess (correctly) that I come from a nautical background. Passenger (and cargo) ships prior to GMDSS (Global Maritime Distress and Safety System) carried portable lifeboat/liferaft radio equipment. This had handles for the operator, or his/her helper, to generate power to operate the transceiver on the appropriate frequencies. (I say appropriate, as I don't want to put frequencies into the minds of anyone who may reply. What I particularly want to know are the frequency/frequencies that civil passenger (or maybe cargo) aircraft emergency radio equipment operated on. Also the mode of transmission. Nautical equipment sent a SOS message in Morse code also manually by Morse key (that would have been my job) or by radio telephone.

Sorry for a somewhat vague question, but I'm putting together a query to the UK CAA and need some ammo.

Besides frequencies and modes, type numbers would be useful.

In the back of my mind I seem to remember seeing a plaque advising of location of emergency radio on either a KLM or BA a/c.

I would expect at the present time that any equipment carried would likely be for reception/relay by satellite on 121.5, 406MHz etc. I'm looking for terrestrial radio MF/HF.

Thanks

Clive

PPL with HF RTF

Clive,
Welcome to the jungle ! !

First, I don't believe airliners carry any kind of raft or emergency radios. I could be wrong and, if so, hopefully someone will be able to correct me.

I know they do carry Emer. Locator Transmitters. They are activated by G-force in a crash and transmit a generic signal on a frequency that is reserved for ELTs. They operate on 243MHz and 121.5 MHz. 243MHz is also available to rescue craft stations.

The Aircraft band assigned by the FAA covers from 118MHz to 135MHz. 121.5 is the emrgency frequency used when you want to declare an emergency. I do believe it is the international frequency for emergencies. It is available via the Comm radio in all aircraft. There are quite a few handheld tranceivers available for pilots that are FCC and FAA cerified for emergency use. Most are battery powered but some have solar chargers and still others have a crank generator.

I don't have a MF or HF radio, so, again, I'm clueless.

There, I have succeeded in not answering most of your question, but welcome to the forum.

Glenn

The big stuff has the 406 Khz, 121.5 and 243 Mhz as beacons. Some also have the ability to speak as well on the upper two frequencies. In addition, EPIRBS are also carried which transmit an ID plus Lat. and Long. Again, some of these sets have a voice capability on the upper two freqencies. Having the ability to transmit on MF is most unlikely due to the length of aerial and power required.

PM

Over water aircraft are required to have life rafts for the crew and pax. The bigger the airplane, the more rafts required for the pax side of the house. Cargo airplanes will usually have a couple of rafts aboard. By the way, the new emergency slides double as life rafts. The rafts are equipped with things like small quantites of food and water, first aid stuff, flare guns, dye markers and a ton of other stuff that doesn't come into my fatigued mind at this moment. They also have ELT's as noted by Piltdown Man.

I have a question, if an aircraft is flying over the north pole, would that aircraft have to carry "extra/special" survival equipment for the crew/pax in case of an emergency? I am referring to survival equipment that would help protect people from the severe weather at the north pole. I remember reading somewhere that aircraft in this situation would have to carry survival equipment, what would that be? Tents? Flares?

Morris

In my OP I did not mention the frequencies used at sea for liferaft/lifeboat radio. On cargo ships it was carry on gear and the standard kit actually went down to MF on 500 kHz for Morse W/T. The aerial being either a telescopic whip or in case it was taken to an open lifeboat, a wire aerial to rig using the telescopic as a support. Other frequencies were 2182 kHz for R/T (and the Radiotelephone Alarm Signal) and 8364 kHz again for Morse W/T. Both Morse frequencies could be manually keyed or a wind up keying unit would transmit SOS + long dashes for DF purposes. This all came to an end 1st February 1999 when GMDSS was introduced. Liferafts/lifeboats then went for EPIRBs which are effectively the same as for aircraft. What I'm looking for is info regarding early 1990s or before, when satellite was non-existent.

Cheers!

It'd be weight prohibitive to carry cold weather survival gear for a pax airplane. I'm trying to figure out if there are any pax carriers doing polar routes right now. Some freighters carry cold weather survival gear for the crew. Tents, sleeping bags, jackets, etc.

Man ! ! I learn something everytime Ranger posts. Ain't it great?

Life rafts for all, eh? Glad to know that.

Yeah, the good ol' ATC flight plan...

Though I don't precisely know what things does it carry, there's a box on the ATC flight plan format that reads "Survival Equipment" and gives 4 options, Jungle, Maritime, POLAR and desert. I think it would carry some of the stuff Ranger said.

As for the transatlantic/pacific airplanes, on the PAX side, again the ATC flight plan format, on the Avianca's flights to Europe on the B767, and even on the MD-83's there's a box that reads "Jackets" and the 2 options marked on the ATC flight plan are "Light" and "VHF", so those jackets gotta have a VHF radio somewhere, don't know exactly, never got to see one of those...

I think VHF in that case means, "Very Heavy Fleece".

Our Md11´s (cargo carrier) contain a six person raft in addition to the 2 slides (52 people cap. each). There are also 2 polar kits on each aircraft as well as 2 handheld ELT´s with R/T capability on 121.5 Mhz. The ELT´s can be picked up by satellites.