Identify equipment
 

Hello!

This is nothing but idle curiosity.

I have here a piece of what looks to be RAF breathing equipment which arrived as part of a lot of stuff purchased from a surplus dealer to be costume for a film production. It looks like the connector I've mostly seen on American gear, but it has the RAF's 6D prefix for oxygen equipment; is this ancient enough to be Phantom related? The manifold (with hand lettering) is just an empty volume, nothing in it. Then there's one large and one small outlet hose.

I've asked around a few enthusiasts but nobody can work out what on earth this was intended to do. Why does anyone need two hoses?

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e7930679a4.jpg

Possibly a piece of safety equipment workshop kit which was never an aircraft part. The 'squippers' had to ensure that the kit supplied to crew was properly tested so there would have been a fair amount of test kit which would not make any sense in the context of normal flying gear.

Not Phantom related as the section and ref number would have to be 26PH or 100PH. 6D is a generic oxygen equipment S/Ref. You can also see in the image there is a manufacturers data plate. The info on there might help.

Familiar UK manufacturer of what I guess might be called breathing equipment.

The connector is a type familiar from American gear, which reads MSA (presumably Mine Safety Appliances), then

6D 2003
CONNECTOR INLET
(WARNING) MC 3A/1

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....af318ae781.png

...ah. It's for the AR5 Aircrew NBC Respirator.

Still no idea why it has two hoses, though. One to clear condensation from the visor, or something?

Yes, definitely AR5 - the very sight of it made me shudder! As for the two hoses, I think that one feeds filtered air to the mask but the rest of your face and eyes also need protection from the CBRN contamination so the other hose feeds filtered air to the non mask part of the hood.

​​​​​​​Ah. Is this the thing John Peters gripes about wearing in the famous Tornado book?

We all griped about wearing it - it was horrible! Not to mention jumping into the pool for dinghy drills wearing it.

As already said by a couple of posters, it’s for the AR5 NBC hood, a devilish device and considered such a flight safety hazard that we only normally wore it in the simulator, very occasionally it was worn on ‘special occasions’ in the aircraft but only one of the pilots could wear it, the other one (C130) had to be in normal kit.

It may well be for the AR5. I'd imagine its Canberra kit or possibly Victor. We started tie-wrapping the hoses on instead of using whipping late 80s/ early 90s though that could be a red herring.
I'm sure Stitchbitch will be along soon to confirm or correct

Interestingly enough, while most of the hoses were cable-tied, the three-inch length between the manifold block and (what I take to be) the connector to the aircraft is held on with two bands of what looks like waxed or lacquered string.

When I first saw it, my immediate impression was that it had been haphazardly reassembled for some reason, and I was surprised to discover through a quick google image search that it was standard technique.

I have no experience with the mask end of this hose set but the left connector end is familiar to me from high altitude sailplane flying with military surplus regulators.

The connector on the left side of the image has a large main connector that is fed by the ship's regulator. The smaller bayonet connector is fed by the bail out bottle. I have the same connector on my Scott diluter/demand mask.

"The connector on the left side of the image has a large main connector that is fed by the ship's regulator. The smaller bayonet connector is fed by the bail out bottle."

Agreed, similar set up to that used (I think) on the Mk 4 MB seat on types such as the JP.

Don't remember enough about the AR5 to comment on that end of the plumbing.

The dreaded useless AR5 !
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f7ffb8456d.jpg

Yeah, all you winged gods hated wearing the AR5, spare a thought for those of us that had to clean out the sweat and snot filled bag after you'd finished with it. Absolutely disgusting.

Tashengurt,
you should have tried wearing it whilst flying ! There were times when I would have traded jobs with you.

I took part in a field trial for support helicopters where we were required to live in it for 36 hours, with only short breaks in a Porton liner. Myself and my crewman had to try sleeping in a hay loft wearing the respirator. The flying helmet was replaced by a head harness to keep it in place. After getting what little sleep we could I then had to brief and fly a low level formation task and fly with a trials assessment team member. SH crews had to carry around and fly with the “hissing handbag” motorised air supply kit because obviously helicopters don’t have a built in oxygen system to connect to.

Horrendous piece of kit.

This is us 'slipping' at Akrotiri with AR5 kit on our way to start the RAF AT Det at Riyadh. We had to take it all despite the lack of safe storage and servicing facilities.
We also had our 9mm and eight rounds. Again no secure storage.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a7a2a7514f.jpg

Looking at the original picture : I don’t recognise the fitting below the manifold that divides into two hoses. It does look like a JP type emergency oxygen connection? What type of aircraft had that fitting for AR5?

Are the two tubes attached to anything at the top end? The oxygen connector is a modified MC-3A, but instead of the inlet warning device it has a two pin bayonet fitted, so possibly an AR5 training device or an X-mask. The small port on the side of the connector is normally attached to the Emergency Oxygen hose, the two pin would go to some kind of Personal Equipment Connector or filtered air supply.