Bodily Functions on FJ Ferry Flights ?
 

So at the risk of revealing all kinds of "they had to put a new ejection seat in" type stories, how exactly do fighter/attack flight crews cope with the biological demands of long distance ferry flights in smaller aircraft - Ascension to MPA in a Typhoon for example.

I may as well throw in the one story I know of in that "vein". Australian AF Mirage IIIs on detachment to Kuala Somewhere and the guys went for a night out and ended up eating a decent sized portion of the local curry. The next day they were scheduled for 1-v-1 ACM and our man taxied out with some serious gurgles going on - at the merge he rolled 90 degrees and pulled hard, the g inflated his g suit belly bladder and the force of that turned him into a giant fecal matter water pistol, evidently it went everywhere and the call to 'knock it off' was instantaneous.

Feel free to educate me on both the mechanics of such things during longhaul flights, and any horror stories you may have.

Lady drivers wear nappies IIRC?


Male drivers have piddle packs for no 1's as well I believe?

I gave a pair of Jag jocks a couple of imodium at Lajes a few years back. Apparently made the crossing to Halifax more civilised in the cockpit.

My longest ferry 15:20hrs its amazing what you can get in to a water bottle :ooh:

I won't mention the used condom found under the seat of a 20 Sqn Jag after transiting back from Red Flag... The said item I believe was returned to the W*nker (Pun intended) later at a dining in night.

At least goon suits are water proof.

Air tight too but disgusting when you take them off after 15 hours plus.

Never caught short personally but there is a lovely story around Ark's last East of Suez cruise. One pilot had a skin full heading through the Med and threw up over the side of his bunk. In the morning, he was surprised not to find his supper on the deck but assumed he had cleared it up and not remembered.

8 months later, passing through Gib, with the sea temp dropping, he went to put on the goon suit that had been hanging next to his sink - and put his foot in it!

A few stories...

An F-14 Exchange Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) had a curry in the delightful Shalimar the night before the trail home from Akrotiri. Somewhere over the Mediterranean he had to ask the pilot to put his ejection seat pins and he put his in. Then he proceeded to undress in the back cockpit of the F3 and deficate in one of the white packed lunch boxes. Apparently, to his credit, he did not make any mess in the cockpit. If I recall correctly someone rolled inverted over the top of the jet to get a photo for the Sqn diary.

Lady Navigator issued a nappy and tried to use it over the desert but many years of toilet training meant that she just couldn't wet herself. So the kind Squippers made her up a device by gluing an oxygen mask to a length of oxygen hose and blanked off the rest of the holes: "Hey Presto!" She could now use the gents pee bags. It worked in a similar way to the white "Lady J" adaptor to the light aircraft's "Little John" pee bottle in the picture below:

http://www.sportys.com/media/catalog.../3/13088_3.jpg

Another funny one. Whilst operating as a 4-ship of F3s somewhere in the Atlantic off the coast of Portugal the lead Nav gets a call of nature where the "turtle is starting to get inquisitive!". We have all been eating lots of spicey Tapas and washing it down with Gallons of Baileys in the local riverside bars in Seville for the past fortnight and most of us are not having to push to hard to evacuate our bowels! Anyway, the pilot declares to the Portuguese controller that he has an in-flight emergency with his navigator and requests direct track to Moron AFB where we are operating from - the controller is very helpful and we make a 550-600kts transit direct line as a 4-ship. On the tactical inter formation frequency everyone is chatting to the stricken Nav who explains that he is about to explode in his immersion "goon" suit that we are wearing as we are operating so far out in the ocean. All is going well until we we break into the circuit at the airfield and the Nav yells on frequency "it's too late!". The engineers are listening to the tactical ops frequency and know what is wrong so they meet the Navigator at the bottom of the aircraft steps with a water fire-hose and push it in past his neck seal and turn it in full blast. Result - Navigator now clean...

On TACEVAL I was scrambled and went to the tanker about 2 times. Not expecting this I hadn't had my pre-sortie pee. I told the handling pilot that I needed to go and neither of us had pee bags so he said he would take it easy. Somewhere near Flamborough Head, he spotted a 4 ship of Jags en route at low level towards Coltishall. Exclaiming "Targets of Opportunity" he rolled and pulled towards them. The pain in my bladder/sphynchter was excruciating and promptly put my arm/hand out to grab something and pushed the glass into the radar display and broke it - as we unloaded and rolled out I said, "mate, I think we need to knock it off I've just broken the screen in the back and there is glass everywhere". That did the trick and I had a pee in the Hardened Aircraft Shelter (HAS) drain within 15 minutes!

Finally, I flew with a pilot who needed to go for a pee ~6 times on a 10 1/2 hour transit from Alaska to UK. He had to reuse his 2 pee-bags and one of my 2 as well! So it is quite common to use these on a transit for some.

LJ

In the old days, the Pilot's Mate would clean it up for half a crown.

Similar story when doing QRA in the Falklands and 'Bondu' the 1435Flt cat (and chief rat/mouse catcher) pee'd into one of the crew's goon suits that we used to leave on the floor in the corridor for quick access and plenty of room to put on (the rooms were a bit pokey). During one scramble the pungent essence of 'tomcat' was apparent as one unlucky sole had to put on his goon suit and fly in it for a few hours!

LJ

I did hear that flying a Jaguar was a bit like knocking one off....it is great while you are at it, but if your friends find out about what you do then it can cause quite a bit of embarrassment.

Slight thread drift but after I left the RAF (1983) I had a 12 month gliding holiday in Africa,I also used to do some 'work breaks' on the local AF Hawks (T mk60) as a civvy.Anyway - one day I had to replace a tailplane PCU (power control unit/actuator) - the job made more interesting by the lack of a hyd rig or proper tools - because we were a bit out in the sticks.After I signed the job up - the Boss (Sqn Ldr) asked me if I was happy with the job owing to the lack of tech support and I gave my standard answer of " I would be absolutely happy to do the Air Test with you" :)
He replied that was impossible as he had a student to fly with the next day.
Anyway - next day dawns and the stude was sick/unfit to fly and the Boss said to me "still wanna go ?" - Of course says I.
So off we go for a real fun trip inc spinning and high mach number dive and also 'bouncing' a couple of his studes :)
In Africa I did suffer occasionally with the squits and towards the end of this Hawk flight I did start to have 'that feeling in the old bowels' but I managed to hang on as we 'beat up' the Hunter sqn line LOL.
But after we shut down I quickly unstrapped,ran along the main spar,jumped off the wingtip and carried on to the trap - which fortunately was free.
After I had 'logged in' the Boss said that I should have told him - but I had correctly surmised that it would be my only chance of a jet flight out there :ok:

Well, we all know these threads aren't complete without the classic :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwCAiF61lM0

:uhoh:

Nowhere near as valiant as you chaps I used to ferry aeroplanes - namely the Twin Otter - from Downsview, Toronto and one one occasion I brought my CAA Ops Inspector for the ride. I planned to transit at fl200 ish but John Mitchell was an inveterate smoker so I made for the occasional nicotine break for him and switched the oxy system off. He started drinking fizzy drinks as well, probable dehydration from a night in Gander. The toilet bin was right down the back and he had to climb over the nine drum quick disconnect fuel system. My big worry he would become hypoxic as the only breathing set was in the cockpit. This went on for about six of the eight hours or so with a cigarette btween each of the 90 minute Pee breaks.
We did a low ils overshoot from Kef into Reyjkavik and John offloaded all his salmon into the hotel freezer. Approaching STY the next day he realized it was still there so I believe the CAAFU 125 did a couple of circuits at Reyjkavik a few days later and brought the salmon home. Quite happy days ferry flying.

Leon I was reading this thread last night and recalled the story...said USN exchange guys pops into our flying clothing bay on his return and asks for new flying gloves. "What did you do with the last pair we gave you?" I'm not sure we were quite ready for that reply though!

Using a wee bag even when stood up in the rear of HMs slowest twin prop is an unusual experience and not easy to do when the stick monkey carries out a 'full and free check' just after flow starts. ;)

Well I am glad they took the mike out :p

There were a lot of steamy lunch boxes arrived back at Ascension following long trails during Corporate.

I'm still having trouble absorbing this one - surely being caught pleasuring oneself in flight and then leaving "evidence" in the cockpit is an instant Section 8 and a serious chat with the AOC ??

Long before immodium. 1959 Aden to Akrotiri in a PR7. Nav not feeling too good so hopped along to sick quarters who gave him a quart of kaolin and morphia. Couple of hefty swigs and off we went. Luckily navigation not too hard. West to Nasser's Rock, north to El Adem then right a bit to Cyprus.
Empty bottle when we arrived. Would swear his blue eyes were still brown a week later.

I once had the privilege of having the run of a field full of late '40s and '50s a/c, mainly transport types. Among these several had pee tubes in the cockpit, a rubber hose with a long funnel-shaped rubber attachment on the end. I'm pretty sure some of the C47s had them, the Skyraider, Catalina and maybe some of the smaller WW2 bombers too - B25? Many aircraft had them. I was told you either tested them before flight with a coke bottle full of water or used them at your peril as any ground crew you might have upset had a simple remedy to get you back!

On a similar vein in the early days of immersion suits on the N Sea they initially weren't personal issue. You got handed one before boarding on the outbound leg and on arrival there was a scramble below the deck to shuck them off and hand them over to the offgoing crew. This was all very well except that some of the guys used to spend their last night of leisure in the all night fishermen's bars at Footdee. Being stuck in a goonbag for two hours up to some of the further rigs caught out not a few but there was no option for them. Neither was there an option for the poor offgoing sod who got handed this treasure - if he wanted to go on leave that day...Yekk!