The pesky bladder
Twice my bladder has caused me concern whilst airborne.
The first time was a formation transit from Souda Bay to Ancona in a Jaguar.
As we taxied I had a niggling suspicion that I should have gone for another wee (I always pee before donning g pants but after the walk round I felt like I could go again). As we got to the holding point I really needed to go but thought I could handle the 90 minute transit.
An inbound passenger aircraft with an emergency meant we held for about 30 minutes before finally departing. I should have unstrapped then but didn’t want to hold up our departure.
The following flight was agony and is the only time I have ever put pins in, unstrapped airborne and had mini-Bob in a pee bag.
The problem was, psychologically I couldn’t make myself pee even though I was in bladder twitching agony. So I resolved to wet myself. But I couldn’t even do that.
So after turning my g pants off for the break (I didn’t want anything squeezing my bladder) we landed, missed the right turn to dispersal and had to vacate left and wait to cross the active.
So to all those people watching the formation of Britain’s finest at Ancona airport in 2005, that guy who relieved himself over the side of a Jaguar with engines running was me.
The second time my bladder let me down was over South Dakota in a Hawk on a transit from Chicago to Rapid City.
My bladder caused an unplanned diversion to a place called Mitchell, South Dakota. Look it up! There’s not much there but we discovered, after landing, that they did have jet fuel and we ended up with a fine lunch in town.
I try to stay close to base now and drink less water!
BV