USAF Change Anthropometric Standards
 

Bit late in the day?

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/y...signs-weapons/

To get more female pilots, the Air Force is changing the way it designs weapons


WASHINGTON — In 2022, the U.S. Air Force will take delivery of the F-15EX, a new and improved version of the nearly 40-year-old F-15E Strike Eagle. But for all of the modern advances of the new jet, only 9 percent of women in the Air Force currently meet the body-size standards for piloting the legacy F-15 and possibly also the new EX variant, potentially blocking highly qualified pilots from flying a platform that will be in operation for decades to come.

Like the vast majority of the Air Force’s aircraft and aircrew equipment, the F-15 was designed to meet the anthropometric specifications of a male pilot in 1967. But in an Aug. 4 memo, the Air Force mandated that future weapons programs use current body size data that reflects the central 95 percent of the U.S. recruitment population — a move meant to make pilot and aircrew jobs more accessible to women and people of color.

Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper, who signed off on the changes, said there is a strategic imperative for opening the door to a more diverse pool of pilots and aircrew......

The new guidance directs the Air Force Lifecycle Management Center to conduct a study that will solidify a more inclusive anthropometric standard that would include 95 percent of the U.S. population eligible for recruitment in the U.S. Air Force.

But until that wraps up, all new-start Air Force programs must be designed with cockpits, aircrew operating stations and aircrew equipment that accommodates eight anthropometric data sets. These eight cases use measurement data from the Centers for Disease Control and represent a range of body types including individuals who are short in stature, have short limbs or have a long torso.

AFLCMC’s Airman’s Accommodations Laboratory will also run a three-year study that will develop separate anthropometric standards for career enlisted aviators, who perform specialized jobs onboard military aircraft including flight engineers, flight attendants and loadmasters. Currently, career enlisted aviators also must meet the 1967 anthropometric standards.

The legacy design parameters — which stem from a 1967 survey of male pilots and measure everything from a pilot’s standing height, eye height while sitting, and reach — have effectively barred 44 percent of women from being able to fly aircraft unless they receive a waiver, with women of color disproportionately affected, the Air Force stated. Even after a waiver is granted, the pilot will remain disqualified from certain platforms regardless of his or her aptitude. Then, when future requirements are defined for new platforms or equipment, the systems are usually designed to meet the existing pool of pilots, creating a self-perpetuating problem.

“It is a hidden barrier with multiple layers,” said Lt. Col. Jessica Ruttenber, an Air Force mobility planner and a leader of the Women’s Initiative Team that advocated for the change in anthropometric standards. “People are trying to do the right thing, but the barriers are baked into legacy policy. And without even knowing it, they’re kind of cut and pasting the same standard.” Ruttenber said the new guidance addresses the root of the problem by establishing new design specifications — ensuring platforms are engineered to accommodate a wide range of body sizes from the start of the development process, rather than papering over the problem with waivers after the fact.

“[For] the next inter-theater airlift that is going to replace the C-130 or C-17, we can’t get the anthropometric data wrong or women are still going to be eliminated 30 years from now. The C-130 and C-17 still eliminate one out of three women from flying it,” she said.......

However, Ruttenber pointed out that the specifications for legacy aircraft will remain a hurdle for the progression of female pilots. “Even if the F-35 is 97 percent accommodating for women, I still can’t get there because the T-38,” which is used for fighter pilot training, “has a 41 percent accommodation envelope for women,” she said.......

Good.

And if you want further examples of this kind of stuff, read Caroline Criado Perez’s book “Invisible Women”.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...B6g-59cCscOQCw

I seem to recall a question in parliament a few years back regarding the same issue over the Typhoon.

When we were taught anthropometry during my mechanical engineering degree in the early 1990s, they placed great emphasis on the importance of identifying the correct population data to design for. We were warned that most readily available data was for fit young male adults recruited into the American military, but we were also told of a particularly fine example of designing to the wrong data.

Ford Australia built a production line in 1988 for the 1989-1994 Ford / Mercury Capri convertible. As it was primarily (90% of production) an export product for the USA, Ford in the US had a lot of input. The anthropometric data for the production line came from Detroit.

Detroit auto workers turned out to be mostly male, with a high proportion of African Americans.
The workforce at Broadmeadows in Australia were mostly recent Vietnamese immigrants.

To say that the data for African American males was not representative of a mixed sex Vietnamese workforce would be a polite understatement.

Ahhh, the dark science of Anthropometrics. One size fits all...or it doesn’t.

OK, who's got the tape measure?


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fad732b12d.jpg

ISTR that the US Congress mandated that future US aircraft would be designed and certificated for 1%ile female to 99%ile male. This occurred long enough ago to establish the JSF basic design requirements. As regards Typhoon, I believe it was designed for a 5 to 95 %ile range. This wasn't as restrictive as it might at first appear as it was based on data that were created from a combination of the datasets from each of the 4 original Nations. I've no idea how this compares to the US approach.

EAP

This is a bit harsh:


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....80aa024dbe.jpg
Some truth in it, perhaps?

Of course the UK is closer to the one on the right than the one on the left, but you knew that already. Anyway, a US service man will turn the EU one into a war bride and take her stateside.

HI Westie! Yes, sadly the younger UK generation is indeed moving rather to the right....

It'll be great if a US serviceman takes the EU lady stateside as that'll help the US gene pool!

The left one looks Russian, or perhaps Ukrainian even a bit more.

Sounds like you still lay claim to the EU.

I'm still waiting for the USAF to sufficiently modify (lower) their standards so that they would accept some one like me for pilot training. Just because I'm 76 years old, over weight, myopic and generally all around a bit creaky, should not bar me from admission to pilot training!

An old man can dream.

Cheers,
Grog

No. Not good. Vague politically-driven social engineering, interfering with scientific anthropometric methodology enabling REAL engineering! How much time and money will be spent tinkering with a tried and tested measurement regime for the benefit of a tiny minority of statistical outliers?

well, given women make up the majority of both the UK and US population, who precisely are the outliers?

and what's "real" engineering?

According the original post 44% of women are excluded on anthro grounds. Please explain how nearly a quarter of the working population is "a tiny minority of statistical outliers"?

A few thoughts from my experience with anthropometric requirements on F-35, which might be of interest:

The JSF programme was the first (as far as I know) to have the '97%' requirement, and meeting it was non-trivial in many areas. Martin Baker did a fantastic job designing an ejection seat that could cope with a very large range of sizes and weights, but the '97%' requirement led to a much larger number of required rocket sled test runs to certify the various seat/helmet combinations across the size/weight range.

The requirement also led to a number of redesigns of the integral boarding ladder to provide a footstep low enough to the deck to allow the shortest pilot to be able to reach it. It also proved quite hard to find someone short enough to carry out the required demonstration that the new design worked. Having designed a footstep low enough to meet this requirement, we then had to find a way of locking the lower portion of the ladder up out of the way to ensure that it didn't foul a towing arm when the aircraft was being moved around.

There were also a number of issues with location of servicing points, panel fasteners and so forth, with redesigns needed to locate them low enough to be reached without using steps or ladders. In my view, (and that's all it is) imposing the requirement was definitely the right thing to do, and it made the engineers work harder to challenge old assumptions.

Best Regards as ever to those working hard to meet the requirements, whatever the requirements are,

Engines

Found the Mail reader.