[ARC5] survival

[Alan Morriss]

i saw "island in the sky" when it first came out, and was very impressed with the authenticity . the forced landing in particular looked as if it was really done. the search pilot who found them was played by andy devine, and everyone thought  him really convincing. he had a gadget fixed up so that he could operate the controls of the autopilot without having to lean forward. after the film , everyone did the same .
they were located using the bendix ADF , the old "coffee grinder" , which is just how it would have been done.
when i did my survival course we were taught how to fly the aerial with the kite and trail the counterpoise . we also had a SARBE , which was much more reliable. in those days all ship's radio operators kept watch on 500 khz .the liferaft also had lots of other stuff, such as barley sugar sweets , there was a fishing kit as well , and we were told that no one had ever caught anything with it, but it was to keep the crew amused and maintain morale. i expect the radio performed the same function.
nowadays , things are much better. ELTs go straight into a satellite .i used to carry a post war version og the gibson girl , but when i was stuck in greenland i was told by a ground engineer that when fitting an ELT to a helicopter inside the hangar it was dropped. they switched it off immediately, but received a call from brussels in minutes saying that there was an ELT operaring in the vicinity of gothaab. 
in "fate is the hunter" ernest gann says that going into narssasuaq, then called  blue west one, was the greatest thrill in civil aviation. i agree , although the old hongkong airport at kai tak gave it a close run. alan G4GEN