Guy Alcala wrote:

In planes with that seat, the parchute was hung on a hook on the
flight deck out of the pilot's reach. If a plane was spinning, or there was fire
on the flight deck, there was no way a pilot could get to his parachute. He could
squeeze out the pilot's window, but to no purpose without a chute. . . ."


This sounds reasonable of course...I've seen where Art says that
they always wore the harness and the chestpack chute but It seems
to me that it would be pretty inconvenient to get any work done
that way.

I've never flown during wartime but we used the harness and
chestpack on the Lancaster during ASW ops in peacetime. We always
wore the harness but never the chestpack, that sucker is big,
about 1.5 feet wide, 8 - 10 inches 'deep' and about 8 - 10 inches
'fore and aft'. It's heavy too, likely 25 pounds or so. I just
can't imagine moving around much with that thing dangling from
your chest for 6 - 8 hours...BUT...I wasn't there and war can do
funny things to one I'm sure.

I mean nothing derogatory by that either...it was just a
different time, one that I'm not familiar with. Thank God.
--

-Gord.