I have some first-hand experience of all this as I was the pilot of the force-landed Yak mentioned in Genghis's recent thread about soft helmets.
When I had the engine failure I was lucky that the blown plug core didn't set fire to the ignition harness and fill the cockpit with smoke, or worse, start to burn the aircraft. When I had to force land in a small paddock after noticing power lines obstructing the flightpath into my chosen field, the aircraft hit a fence post which ruptured the port fuel tank. Fortunately, there was no fire.
I was wearing a nomex flying suit and nomex winter jacket, helmet, flying boots and gloves. The helmet certainly saved my life. I didn't realise I had struck my head on the instrument panel coaming hard enough to split the shell in two places. I thought the reason iwas spitting out bits of broken teeth was because my chin had impacted the stick.
The helmet meant that I wasn't knocked out and the neck pad protected me against whiplash. (The main reason I got the helmet was that if I had to bale out and hit the tail, I would have a reasonable chance of remaining conscious.) If everything had gone up in flames, I would have had a few more seconds to get out because I was wearing full protective clothing.
We all think it won't happen to us. But sometimes it does. And, depending on what decisions you make, it may or may not work out as you would like. It makes sense to wear appropriate clothing. OK, maybe a flying suit does look odd in a PA28, but wearing non-synthetic clothing doesn't. Flying boots look OK and offer proper protection and support, which trainers wouldn't in an emergency. Likewise gloves.
Yet look at the adverts for the pilot shops - nylon flying jackets, polycotton flying suits offering some protection against oil but none whatsoever against fire. People buy this stuff specifically for flying, but why isn't it manufactured in suitable materials? And what about those people who wear high-viz clothing in the cockpit? If you have to wear such garments for operational reasons, do so outside!
Flying suits are available in other colours apart from gro-bag green, Black looks quite smart. You don't have to put any patches and badges on if you don't want to and if you don't have the knee pad pockets, it looks relatively unabtrusive.
I know a lot of people don't want to look like airline captains or Red Arrows pilots when they take to the air. But if I hadn't been wearing that sort of kit, I wouldn't be sitting here typing this.
Fly safe.
RD
