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Old 1st Mar 2005, 15:41
  #17 (permalink)  
Tarnished
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Gloucestershire
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As you need you digits (well most of them) to do almost everything in a military cockpit, protection of them is given high importance. Leather gloves are a cost effective means of providing durable garments.

In addition to protection from the heat from short-duration "flash-fires" various other gloves or glove combinations exist. There are immersion gloves which have a rubber wrist seal and are treated with a water-repelent substance to help in the sea survival case. Under these you would normally wear a thin pair of silk "immersion glove inners" to help improve the thermal qualities and/or absorb sweat.

In addition there are gloves which help protect agaist some of the "nastier" weapons of modern conflicts (chem/bio).

As with all things in life it is a matter for compromise, protection versus utility, there is no one pair of gloves that can cater for all eventualities and still allow you to podge buttons and tinker with switches.

T
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