Canadians change anthropomorphic requirments for Pilot training
 

Basically the Canadians felt that the current limitiations on body dimensions for aircrew selection were flawed. They came up with a program that measured all the current cockpit dimensions and matched them to the anthropomorphic requirements. The only thing that seems slightly odd, is the the woman concerned in this article only had "one" leg that was too short, making the wild assumption that she has two to start with. Lots of potential for the "keep tottie out of the cockpit" brigade to cry positive discrimination, but I would be curious to know when the MoD's requirements were last validated against the current platforms.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../National/home

This was part of an ongoing effort to update our specs - the 1980's vintage numbers just weren't working anymore. Hopefully what we have now will be a lot more useful, especially when dealing with ALCE issues, etc.

anthropomorphic=big word
 

Does itmean they're letting monkeys fly their jets now??? :confused:

She sounds like a woman I once met in Butterworth...

This is all political double-speak for widening the seat to fit a fatter arse.

Or maybe a graceful surrender to reality... as expressed in the 1980s USAF study on pilot fitness that turned up data which made the PR guys unhappy... here they had spent 40 years since (and decades before) becoming a separate service pushing the "Tall, Lean, Handsome Air Force Fighter Pilot" image, only to find that the short, squat, weight-lifter type could handle higher G-forces than the "recruiting poster" type... AND that on the average, women could handle G-forces better than men!!

This was true regardless of how much each body type exercised... although those who didn't exercise fared far worse!