"Chris Clarke" (shiftsandgiggles)
03/11/2014 at 15:05 • Filed to: planelopnik
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"Chris Clarke" (shiftsandgiggles)
03/11/2014 at 15:05 • Filed to: planelopnik | 6
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SH: This is the other really practical question here: it's a space suit, so you're diapered up, yes?
RM: That was an option. You did have a tube on, what looked like a big condom. It had a nipple on the end of it, hooked up to a tube that led down to a bag with sponges in it. Those little hard sponges you see somewhere that when you put water on it, it expands to its real size? That's what was in these things. That's what you used for urination. The plan was to never use anything else. If you did, you just did.
They did have a diaper for extremely long flights, but I don't remember anyone ever using it. For one thing, if you were not well you did not fly. Everyone trained hard, everyone was in great shape, you watched what you ate. You used that little bag, and that was quite a challenge. You had to get the differential pressure right or you'd be sitting in wet pants for the whole flight.
Also, half the crew that suited you and de-suited you were female. You had a great working relationship with them. You just hated to come back it with poop in your pants. There's a lot of stuff in the job that isn't in the shiny brochure.
Read the full inter view on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .
vicariousILive
> Chris Clarke
03/11/2014 at 15:19 |
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I would give anything to crap my pants in a SR-71. No shame here
Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole
> Chris Clarke
03/11/2014 at 15:19 |
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The "baggies" are called "piddle packs", or if they're used by a fighter pilot, "cheese sammiches". The U-2/SR-71 use(d) a cathetered version, this is the normal one:
Two different styles, both nasty if the pilot hucks them out of the cockpit onto the flightline without care.
On long hops over the pond, fighter pilots wear what's lovingly called, the "poopy suit". It's actually a water survival suit similar to a dry suit a diver would wear. However, should you go out drinking with the bros the night before a pond hop, and that chimichanga doesn't agree with you 3 hours into your 8 hour sortie, guess what you get to do?
Yep, that dry suit has booties and you can't really get it off to attempt to pickle that hot mess into your helmet bag (heard of it being done, thankfully never saw the aftermath). And that's why they call it the "poopy suit".
HammerheadFistpunch
> Chris Clarke
03/11/2014 at 15:47 |
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From other material I've read, these pilots ate high protein low waste meals before flight so they wouldn't need to dump. As was mentioned, they worked pretty hard on details like that so it wasn't an issue.
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Chris Clarke
> vicariousILive
03/11/2014 at 15:49 |
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This is the correct answer!
You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much
> Chris Clarke
03/11/2014 at 16:15 |
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Thanks for sharing, that is an awesome interview. The SR-71 is just a fascinating plane to read about. And then there is this gem:
SH: But just so I didn't miss the most important point: you landed an SR-71 with one engine on snow safely.
RM: Yeah.
desertdog5051
> HammerheadFistpunch
03/11/2014 at 17:07 |
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The SB article/interview says it consisted of steak and eggs.
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HammerheadFistpunch
> desertdog5051
03/11/2014 at 17:08 |
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ah, there you go. Didn't click the link
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desertdog5051
> HammerheadFistpunch
03/11/2014 at 17:11 |
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It's a pretty good read. Not too long, but long enough to get into some detail. The comments section takes well over half of the page.