For the aircraft which have it, Charles, it's just a toilet. In smaller,
faster machines it's a pee bag or something like "relief system". I've only
used it once, in the F16.
Story: switch off now if you get bored easily.
My first ever long-range trip, using a USAF Reserves KC-135 to get 5 F16s from
MacDill AFB, FL to NAS Miramar near San Diego. I felt the need to pee after a
couple of hours, perhaps over Texas. So I broke the membrane on a pee bag and
tried to use it. But the little fighter's seat is inclined at 30deg (vs the
13deg of most other ejection seats) and I'm not well-endowed enough to make the
flow from leaning backwards like that. So I have to unstrap and lean forward a
bit. But also it's cold in the cockpit and a limp dick becomes quite difficult
to find. So you have to think warm thoughts to make it all happen!
What is also difficult is holding formation with a tanker while trying to find
your willie in a flight suit strapped into an ejection seat. So I wandered
away from the formation and almost couldn't find them when I had finished my
business.
But that was preferable to a USAF colleague's experience. Before we departed
MacDill he showed me a pee tube affair that he had rigged up: a funnel over
said willie, tube-connected to a pee bag in his lower flight suit pocket.
Trouble was it leaked ... and he got out of his super-cool F16 on the ramp at
Fightertown USA with a long wet patch on his flight suit leg and crotch,
risking great scorn from our Naval hosts. Oh, the ignominy!
And this is a photo of me in a D-model (2-seater) just before departing
Miramar. I think it was taken with an Olympus Infinity Twin, bought in San
Diego a few days before.
http://gallery.me.com/zuiko#100053
Chris
On 8 Dec 2009, at 18:09, Charles Geilfuss wrote:
> Chris what do the fly boys call it? I've never heard it called anything in
> the big jets. In the small ones I suppose its a diaper or "just wait".?!
>
> Charlie
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