Dinghy Drills and Swimming Tests
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Dinghy Drills and Swimming Tests
At a secret air base in Wiltshire (while it is still open) during our annual dinghy drill we are subjected to a swimming test. Ok it's only 6 lengths but still another annual hoop or tick on the box to get. As I understand it the only legal training requirement is to get a brief and function the life jacket and use it in a water environment. I think that the dinghy bit and swimming are additional extras. What I would like to know is what other aviators in other a/c and locations are subjected to. We also do the 5 yearly bit in the S West. I just wonder if this is empire building or is the swimming test a legal training requirement.
Champagne anyone...?
Practice bleeding
If memory serves, the PEd blokes use the dinghy drills as an opportunity to keep the station annual swimming test stats up. I don't believe it's a published requirement for us to actually do it although I may be wrong. It's no particular hardship though, just a fabulous waste of time and money.
Still it's jolly useful for all those North Atlantic ditchings we keep having. If I have to spend another month bobbing about in the Atlantic, eating flying fish that have landed in my dingy and drinking distilled urine I'll go mad
To be fair the swimming test is a handy way of checking that I haven't forgotten how to swim in the preceding year.
I also find it handy to take along a box of pins. These are good for sticking in your eyes during the quiet moments in the "drill".
Sorry title above should be "Practice floating" instead of "Practice bleeding". Same difference I know but nice to be accurate.
Still it's jolly useful for all those North Atlantic ditchings we keep having. If I have to spend another month bobbing about in the Atlantic, eating flying fish that have landed in my dingy and drinking distilled urine I'll go mad
To be fair the swimming test is a handy way of checking that I haven't forgotten how to swim in the preceding year.
I also find it handy to take along a box of pins. These are good for sticking in your eyes during the quiet moments in the "drill".
Sorry title above should be "Practice floating" instead of "Practice bleeding". Same difference I know but nice to be accurate.
Sounds like your 'pool drill' is exactly the same as that at a large secret airbase in Gloucestershire. When a PEd type is present then the swimming test is par for the course. Doesn't exactly prove a lot.
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Unless the QR has changed recently (I last looked it up a number of years ago, when trying (successfully) to get out of a swimming test scheduled for 2 hours after I had finished a nightshift), there is a requirement for Aircrew, RAF Regt and RAF Police to pass a RAF swimming test during training.
After that test, it stated that ‘regular’ swimming training was to be carried out, no mention of annual testing.
Haven’t done the test for about 8 years, except for the unofficial version when I have had to extricate myself from an EWS.
After that test, it stated that ‘regular’ swimming training was to be carried out, no mention of annual testing.
Haven’t done the test for about 8 years, except for the unofficial version when I have had to extricate myself from an EWS.
There's been stuff on this in this forum before - search for 'swimming'. It's in QRs and probably re-iterated in GASOs, tis for us, as an annual requirement. We tried to have it ditched but it's apparently very important - to someone. They say it's so we can swim to the multi-seat dinghy.
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Gentlemen,
Are we not being just an incy-wincy bit silly here
As someone who has had a vested interest in saving your neck if and when you ever end up in that little dinghy, whether it be a single man or a multi, I do think that this is an unnecessary winge
sorry!
Those of you that know me, will know that I am all for having a good winge and moan, but come on chaps, this is getting a bit daft here, isn't it??
I doubt if anyone would seriously argue about the value of dinghy drills, would they? and as for the swimming tests? Yeh, it's a bit of a nause, but try to be positive, and look on the positive side:
1. It gives those nice PTIs a sense of importance and value (and lets face it, they need it
)
2. More importantly, it enables us ALL to take an annual look at just how hard it is swimming, especially if (like my last station) you have to do the swimming in flying kit and/or immersion suit.
Stop Start, I'm suprised at your comments about North Atlantic ditchings blah. Certainly when I was on the kipper fleet, there was more than one occasion when crews could quite easily have gone for a swim. Can't speak for the fleet now, but it must be of some value, don't you agree?
Let me make a suggestion to you, the next time you need to do a dinghy drill, with your crew, or if only by yourself, try this...
Tell the P Ed staff that you want to do it at night, yep, in darkeness.
Make sure ALL of the lights are out in the pool.
Get the P Eds to throw the dinghy in at one end of the pool, and you and your mates turn around about 8 times (quickly), and then jump in at the other end of the pool, and swim to the dinghy Now see what its like
It's NOT easy.
If you were to now add a freezing cold sea, howling gale, wind, rain, sea-sickness blah, you will appreciate those who do it regularly and at least 'play the game' will survive simply because they have done it lots of time before, including the swimming nause
Go on, give it a go, and give the P Ed staff their ounce of power, it might just save your life one day.
Sorry I've got so serious about this, I'll go and have a lie down now
Best regards
The Swinging Monkey
'Caruthers, chuck that man a liferaft'
Are we not being just an incy-wincy bit silly here
As someone who has had a vested interest in saving your neck if and when you ever end up in that little dinghy, whether it be a single man or a multi, I do think that this is an unnecessary winge
sorry!Those of you that know me, will know that I am all for having a good winge and moan, but come on chaps, this is getting a bit daft here, isn't it??
I doubt if anyone would seriously argue about the value of dinghy drills, would they? and as for the swimming tests? Yeh, it's a bit of a nause, but try to be positive, and look on the positive side:
1. It gives those nice PTIs a sense of importance and value (and lets face it, they need it
)2. More importantly, it enables us ALL to take an annual look at just how hard it is swimming, especially if (like my last station) you have to do the swimming in flying kit and/or immersion suit.
Stop Start, I'm suprised at your comments about North Atlantic ditchings blah. Certainly when I was on the kipper fleet, there was more than one occasion when crews could quite easily have gone for a swim. Can't speak for the fleet now, but it must be of some value, don't you agree?
Let me make a suggestion to you, the next time you need to do a dinghy drill, with your crew, or if only by yourself, try this...
Tell the P Ed staff that you want to do it at night, yep, in darkeness.
Make sure ALL of the lights are out in the pool.
Get the P Eds to throw the dinghy in at one end of the pool, and you and your mates turn around about 8 times (quickly), and then jump in at the other end of the pool, and swim to the dinghy Now see what its like
It's NOT easy. If you were to now add a freezing cold sea, howling gale, wind, rain, sea-sickness blah, you will appreciate those who do it regularly and at least 'play the game' will survive simply because they have done it lots of time before, including the swimming nause
Go on, give it a go, and give the P Ed staff their ounce of power, it might just save your life one day.
Sorry I've got so serious about this, I'll go and have a lie down now
Best regards
The Swinging Monkey
'Caruthers, chuck that man a liferaft'
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Interesting points here,
So what happens, if someone fails? Grounding? "Professional" swimming instruction? A huge "Can't Swim" sticker on the annual report? What?
I think that this sort of training is important, but I wonder if there is a follow up plan, for those chaps that don't swim well. Also, since it is a test, I assume time and training is put aside to allow crews to practice during company time, and at company expense (Yeh Right!).
WW
So what happens, if someone fails? Grounding? "Professional" swimming instruction? A huge "Can't Swim" sticker on the annual report? What?
I think that this sort of training is important, but I wonder if there is a follow up plan, for those chaps that don't swim well. Also, since it is a test, I assume time and training is put aside to allow crews to practice during company time, and at company expense (Yeh Right!).
WW
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Interesting the Wiltshire secret base makes you do 6 lengths. Oxfordshire secret base does 4! Perhaps our faster, higher aircraft can glide closer to the shore before ditching.
Champagne anyone...?
Swinging monkey 
My dear chap you really must calm down a bit There are far more serious things we could be training for but don’t.
I have absolutely no problem at all with floating about in a dingy once a year if it keeps a few PTIs happy. I also have no major snag with swimming up and down a bit. The question is where is written down that this is a requirement? I certainly haven’t seen it in QRs etc. But then I don’t read them so that might explain it
As a kipper man, ex or otherwise, you probably have a vested interest in being up to speed on dingy drills as that's where you spend most of your time - 200' in the dark on 2 engines 8000 miles from dry land, with barely enough rations for 5 meals each in the next 2 hours Your chance of ending up in the oggin are probably statistically higher than mine
I, on the other hand, fly a tactical/strategic transport aircraft at 32000' backwards and forwards across Europe and the Middle East for a living. I do pass over the odd stretch of water and sometimes get to flog across the North Atlantic.
For my sins I get thrown in the sea once every five years and get left to float about for a bit. I practice ditching scenarios in the sim every now and then and float about in the local pool once a year. As I have said I have absolutely no gripe with this; if it keeps somebody happy then fine. I personally think the last bit is a waste of my time though.
I do not consider a ditching to be a major threat to my life on a day to day basis. It ranks with 4 engine flame-outs in a volcanic ash cloud in my list of things that are going to get me.
When I went through rotary training about 10 billion years ago we had to do the dunker etc. I absolutely hated it but thought it was an incredibly valuable training aid. When I ended up flying over large stretches of water in a helo I knew that, should I ditch, I had the training and wherewithal to exit the whirling death-machine in safety. I'm sorry, once a year in the local pool offers nothing like this. Even it was done in the dark with a couple of sharks in the pool it still wouldn't serve a particularly useful purpose. To go the whole hog they could smack us round the heads with cricket bats to simulate the braining we’ve just given ourselves on the HUD, stowed or otherwise, in the crash.
The 5 yearly St Mawgan seafest is a "good" thing (insomuch as slamming your genitals in a cupboard door can be a good thing). Jumping into a cold, rough sea and dragging your vomiting carcass into a knackered old dingy certainly focuses your mind on the training and teaches valuable lessons. The local pool is an exercise in stats for some PTI and that’s it.
It’s all a balance of probability thing. I can think of one successful Herc ditching in the last fifty years. I can think of rather more aircraft that have disappeared in the Bermuda triangle. Perhaps St Mawgan could come up with an annual alien abduction training package?
I better add at this point that I am actually speaking in jest here. I know some of our regular posters (not you SM) will be going apoplectic at the thought of someone in the military not taking something seriously
Here you go:
I would now be very grateful if a visiting army gentleman could quickly post something about whinging crabs as is de rigueur in these situations.
I thank you.
My dear chap you really must calm down a bit
There are far more serious things we could be training for but don’t.I have absolutely no problem at all with floating about in a dingy once a year if it keeps a few PTIs happy. I also have no major snag with swimming up and down a bit. The question is where is written down that this is a requirement? I certainly haven’t seen it in QRs etc. But then I don’t read them so that might explain it
As a kipper man, ex or otherwise, you probably have a vested interest in being up to speed on dingy drills as that's where you spend most of your time - 200' in the dark on 2 engines 8000 miles from dry land, with barely enough rations for 5 meals each in the next 2 hours
Your chance of ending up in the oggin are probably statistically higher than mine I, on the other hand, fly a tactical/strategic
transport aircraft at 32000' backwards and forwards across Europe and the Middle East for a living. I do pass over the odd stretch of water and sometimes get to flog across the North Atlantic. For my sins I get thrown in the sea once every five years and get left to float about for a bit. I practice ditching scenarios in the sim every now and then and float about in the local pool once a year. As I have said I have absolutely no gripe with this; if it keeps somebody happy then fine. I personally think the last bit is a waste of my time though.
I do not consider a ditching to be a major threat to my life on a day to day basis. It ranks with 4 engine flame-outs in a volcanic ash cloud in my list of things that are going to get me.
When I went through rotary training about 10 billion years ago we had to do the dunker etc. I absolutely hated it but thought it was an incredibly valuable training aid. When I ended up flying over large stretches of water in a helo I knew that, should I ditch, I had the training and wherewithal to exit the whirling death-machine in safety. I'm sorry, once a year in the local pool offers nothing like this. Even it was done in the dark with a couple of sharks in the pool it still wouldn't serve a particularly useful purpose. To go the whole hog they could smack us round the heads with cricket bats to simulate the braining we’ve just given ourselves on the HUD, stowed or otherwise, in the crash.
The 5 yearly St Mawgan seafest is a "good" thing (insomuch as slamming your genitals in a cupboard door can be a good thing
). Jumping into a cold, rough sea and dragging your vomiting carcass into a knackered old dingy certainly focuses your mind on the training and teaches valuable lessons. The local pool is an exercise in stats for some PTI and that’s it.It’s all a balance of probability thing. I can think of one successful Herc ditching in the last fifty years. I can think of rather more aircraft that have disappeared in the Bermuda triangle. Perhaps St Mawgan could come up with an annual alien abduction training package?
I better add at this point that I am actually speaking in jest here. I know some of our regular posters (not you SM) will be going apoplectic at the thought of someone in the military not taking something seriously
Here you go:
I would now be very grateful if a visiting army gentleman could quickly post something about whinging crabs as is de rigueur in these situations.
I thank you.
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I personally don't mind dinghy drills but I do detest the swimming test; I swim like a brick.
At Waddo we swim 4 lengths but in a coverall not a nice light flying suit mind but a nice heavy techies coverall. After swimming the 4 lengths we then have to tread water for 2 mins before hauling out with no assistance. This may not sound too difficult to those fish amongst you but to me its hell.
I never passed the swimming test in training, never passed it at Kinloss and have passed it once at Waddo; only once was I offered remedial swimming training every Weds at about 7am!
I do swim regularly at the gym I just ain't good at it!
At Waddo we swim 4 lengths but in a coverall not a nice light flying suit mind but a nice heavy techies coverall. After swimming the 4 lengths we then have to tread water for 2 mins before hauling out with no assistance. This may not sound too difficult to those fish amongst you but to me its hell.
I never passed the swimming test in training, never passed it at Kinloss and have passed it once at Waddo; only once was I offered remedial swimming training every Weds at about 7am!
I do swim regularly at the gym I just ain't good at it!
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Update on my initial question.
It is only 4 lengths not 6 as I incorrectly stated and apparently it is not a swimming test it is now a swimming assessment. As to what difference if any this makes I haven't got a clue. Also thanks for the replies so far, I get the impression that there is some form as standardisation as the 2 min tread water exists in Wilts as well.
It is only 4 lengths not 6 as I incorrectly stated and apparently it is not a swimming test it is now a swimming assessment. As to what difference if any this makes I haven't got a clue. Also thanks for the replies so far, I get the impression that there is some form as standardisation as the 2 min tread water exists in Wilts as well.
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Its a traditional part of character training. I did it at FTS in 1950 and at OCU in 1953. Jump into the pool from the high board inflying kit, inflate the dinghy and board it. Kick off boots and swim "N" lengths. Twas ever thus!
On the kipper fleet we have to do a pool drill every 6 months and a sea drill every two years, this is supposed to include a helo lift out. That means every other year in the winter months I get to go swimming in the Moray firth. By the way, why do we have to do the swimming test front stroke (is crawl ,breast stroke ect), when you can only back stroke with a vest inflated?
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Don't jest at this one guys, in reality it is frightening, and believe me I still wake up in a cold sweat screaming my socks off forty years on. Everyone hopes it is never going to be you that it happens to, mine was a mere 600 mile hop but it did happen and when you are in that pool in deepest Wiltshire, Cornwall or wherever, there is no substitute for 5 foot high waves, thunder ripping through your lugs and being pelted with rain that stings your face with only the lightning to see by in a fuel laden sea, and oh the swimming bit in the pool, presumably the dinghies haven't been ripped to shreds and there is a no nice handsome PTI to pull you out of the water by your hair! <WWW above>
Champagne anyone...?
J(G)C - whilst I imagine the experience of a ditching must be pretty bloody nasty indeed we do run the risk of legislating for every eventuality ever.
Speaking such heresay does obviously condemn me to ditching in the N Atlantic next week however I do still feel we are over-preparing for an unlikely eventuality.
As I said before there are far more things that we should be preparing for over and above a ditching. For example, we practice a live smoke and fumes evac once every 3 years. I have had innumerable real smoke and fumes events although fortunately none that have required the full evac. Why not practice live smoke and fumes smoke and fumes once a year?
I'm sorry, but the statistical likelihood of me ditching my trash-hauler into the oggin is too low for it to be a major player in my planning/risk assessment/blah blah blah.
Sorry, I'm arguing for the sake of it here. An annual swimming test/practice floating really is of no concern to me at all. It just concerns me (mildly, I might add) that perhaps we should be looking at other, more relevant issues instead of those that just happen to float our local PTI's boat.
Speaking such heresay does obviously condemn me to ditching in the N Atlantic next week however I do still feel we are over-preparing for an unlikely eventuality.
As I said before there are far more things that we should be preparing for over and above a ditching. For example, we practice a live smoke and fumes evac once every 3 years. I have had innumerable real smoke and fumes events although fortunately none that have required the full evac. Why not practice live smoke and fumes smoke and fumes once a year?
I'm sorry, but the statistical likelihood of me ditching my trash-hauler into the oggin is too low for it to be a major player in my planning/risk assessment/blah blah blah.
Sorry, I'm arguing for the sake of it here. An annual swimming test/practice floating really is of no concern to me at all. It just concerns me (mildly, I might add) that perhaps we should be looking at other, more relevant issues instead of those that just happen to float our local PTI's boat.
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To those of you that object to climbing into a multi because you are singles, you might have need to relocate somewhere sometime in a multi and perhaps their safety briefings have not improved much since John (Gary) Cooper's time. Certainly as others have confirmed the swimming test hasn't. Some of John (Gary) Cooper's experience is worth a read.
Climbing into a multi is far harder than a single.
As professionals you shouldn't winge at something that's testing your fitness even if it only seems to be a PFI's ego trip ....... I never found one I liked.
Somebody care to tell me what model the current is dinghy is?
Having spent hours getting wet, cold and sea sick being the goon in the 6a or 7 prototype
Climbing into a multi is far harder than a single.
As professionals you shouldn't winge at something that's testing your fitness even if it only seems to be a PFI's ego trip ....... I never found one I liked.
Somebody care to tell me what model the current is dinghy is?
Having spent hours getting wet, cold and sea sick being the goon in the 6a or 7 prototype
Think your self lucky that you do it in a POOL!!!
Many years ago I had to do a drill at South Cerney lakes. In November!!
We were chucked overboard and on entering the near freezing water in my flying overalls I nearly died! Really! The shock was that great that they had to pull me back into the boat so as to stop me Hyperventalating!
Me 'trouser spuds' were in my neck let me tell you.
Still, it was a valueable excercise in that I learnt how quickly one could succumb to the cold
Many years ago I had to do a drill at South Cerney lakes. In November!!
We were chucked overboard and on entering the near freezing water in my flying overalls I nearly died! Really! The shock was that great that they had to pull me back into the boat so as to stop me Hyperventalating!
Me 'trouser spuds' were in my neck let me tell you.
Still, it was a valueable excercise in that I learnt how quickly one could succumb to the cold
Champagne anyone...?
A freezing lake?! Luxury!
When I last did it we thrown into a vat of boiling acid full of acid resistant sharks. Then we were pulled out at the last minute and stabbed to death with bread knives.
etc etc
When I last did it we thrown into a vat of boiling acid full of acid resistant sharks. Then we were pulled out at the last minute and stabbed to death with bread knives.
etc etc
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Sometimes it can be fun - I remember doing single-seat drills in Holyhead harbour one winter's afternoon in the early seventies. Being a clever sod I leapt in last, on the principle that I'd be first out. Unfortunately Derek Nequest (think the name's right) parked his burning Whirlwind alongside my dinghy, whereupon we all had to snuggle down until the chopper crew was rescued.
Don't suppose you get wet that day SM?
Don't suppose you get wet that day SM?