White Gloves

[18greens]

Is there any reason for wearing white gloves in the cockpit? as opposed to green or black gloves.

[frodo_monkey]

Nope, just personal preference (or more than likely, the Squippers - safety equipment chaps - only had those in stock when I knackered the last pair). White ones soon become off-grey and covered in chinagraph / gearbox oil / general 'gack' anyhow.

FM

[Lafyar Cokov]

White gloves were/are also used to be visible to other ac in the formation should there be an RT fail and the HEFOE/HEFOM hand signal code has to be used.

LC - Not that we use it on rotary - but from my jet days this is what I remember.

[frodo_monkey]

Going off topic a touch...

LC, I seem to remember being told that at some point in the midsts of time - which begs the question has anyone ever actually used HEFOM for real? Don't think I've ever met anyone who has.

FM

[foldingwings]

Green gloves were issued in the 70s/80s as a form of camouflage but we eventually went back to white for FS reasons.

[18greens]

..and what is HEFOM?

[BEagle]

M for 'Motor' for those too stupid to remember whether the first or second 'E' stood for 'Engine'....

Never had to do a real HEFOE, but I once had to do a wing rock, airbrake out 'me no wireless' thing, then came down on a mate's wing at Brawdy when the RT pigtail somewhere on the back of my Hunter's seat became disconnected during a doggers session...

[Tarnished]

HEFOP - P for power

[CBA_caption]

Apart from the fact that you can't get any gloves where I am, nevermind choosing a colour, green ones are impossible to see.

HEFOM is one use, but giving the rods to your number 2 on a quiet transit is a more commonplace requirement.

CBA

[PPRuNeUser0172]

Hydraulics
Electrics
Fuel
Oxygen
Motor
;)

[Fox3snapshot]

Believe quality is an issue too....white gloves might be made from pig skin. This of course is not appropriate for our part of the world.

Truth is, I think they are just made from extremely good quality leather and the "pig skin" furfy was just to provide a giggle at the bar.

The "green" gloves are pretty basic and of a much lower quality than the "white" all leather jobbies.....

But as I am not a glove expert can we change the topic to beeries!

:E

[BEagle]

They were once known as 'Gloves, Cape Leather'.... Then some politically correct idiot though that, as they were made from 'Cape' leather, they were imported from nasty apartheid-era Seth Efrika. Naughty naughty! So for a while they were made from some policitcally-correct rubbish - Etruscan goat scrotums probably - and ripped very easily indeed.

But eventually sanity returned and the good old white gloves reappeared again.

Some people really took the pi$$, but probably none more so than Lord Percy of the Navbags. He changed a pair of flying gloves every 3 weeks or so - and had 1 pair for wear when carrying his heavy navbag (full of colour-coded pens, a socket set, sundry miscellaneous junk - but no passport!), another pair which would be carefully laid out on top of the control column which he used for take-off and landing - and yet a third pair reserved exclusively for prodding.....

No wonder there was a shortage!

[Tiger_mate]

Interestingly (I know; I need a life) a word search of Cape leather only refers to the S African leather trade, however I have been under the impression for a long time that the white gloves at least are made from Goat Skin.

I dont know of any country that hold goats in such reverance that the product should be politically unsound. Than again I never thought that the tree hugging society in which we now live would ever scoop to such depths as to care.

FWIW, our ground engineers do complain of not being able to see start signs when any other colour than white are used, and the complaint has been discussed at the Stn Flight Safety board. The chairman decreed that all stn aircrew is to / are to use white gloves.

Hasnt quit happened yet though :}

[BEagle]

Yes - but back in the days before Mandela was let out of jail, the UK government had applied trade sanctions against Seth Efrika, so couldn't use 'Cape' leather for our gloves any more.

The Etruscan goat scrotum versions were utter $hite - they ripped far too easily. Slightly grey-ish white, so if you are ever issued a pair, be prepared for them to rip!

[teeteringhead]

but I once had to do a wing rock, airbrake out 'me no wireless' thing, Aaah wingrocking.

I recall a dull sqn cdr (early 70s?) on the mighty Wessex, going for a B Cat with ASCEU ( a phrase young people may have difficulty with) leading a 6 ship task in STANTA.

Whilst Balbo of Wessi were roping down troops, ASCEU man takes dull sqn cdr's radio buttons out .....

... thinks .... (you could almost see the thinks bubble) .. radio failure leading formation ... waggle "wings"!!

Very impressive to see other 5 Wessi with dangling ropes attempting to avoid the boss.

Don't think he got his B cat on that trip .... but he retired as a 2-star so he must have been good!:rolleyes:

[haltonapp]

Thanks BEagle for reminding me of Lord Percy and his gloves various, I also remember a certain person lifting up the locked desk of Lord Percy and shaking it up and down to upset the neatness of his desk drawer!

[ProcATCO]

Deep back in the mists of the mid 80's, when AEOp on the Mighty Hunter, I had a pilot who preferred the white gloves as he could see the "P" and "S" he had written on the back of the gloves!!!!

Whether serious or taking the micheal from himself or not (I never did figure this one out!), it was a great source of mirth for all the crew.

It didn't half make passengers nervous though!!!

:p :ok:

[BEagle]

"Thanks BEagle for reminding me of Lord Percy and his gloves various, I also remember a certain person lifting up the locked desk of Lord Percy and shaking it up and down to upset the neatness of his desk drawer!"

Actually it was one of his immaculately packed nav bags which was turned upside down and given a thorough shaking! But the little coloured tags which Lord Percy had stuck above each keyhole on his desk drawers were swapped over so that he'd get the keys confused....and some nice wet coffee-cup rings were also put on his pristine sheet of desk perspex, his chair moved so that it wasn't perfectly equidistant from each edge of the knee-hole and a nice dusty flying boot print planted squarely on the chair cushion....

Happy days...innocent fun! How ya doing?

[Solid Rust Twotter]

Heard about a grumpy DC4 captain who never gave the f/o a leg but would take off wearing white gloves, remove them after handing over to the f/o, eat his sandwiches, put gloves on before landing, take control and carry out the landing. A young and daring f/o took his gloves along to the bathroom and proceeded to turn them inside out before wiping his bottom with them after a night on the urine. Gloves were replaced in the aircraft and operations continued. Take off as normal, captain hands over the aircraft to f/o, removes gloves and begins eating his sandwiches. As he goes for the first bite a suspicious look comes over his mug. Sandwich gets a critical sniff, window is opened and sandwich is ejected into the slipstream. This continues with the rest of the sandwiches and for the rest of the week. Some marital distress as a result of accusing his wife of packing sh!t sandwiches for his lunch...:E