Biggest and smallest aviators

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 22:19:03 GMT, "Aardvark J. Bandersnatch, MP, LP,
BLT, ETC." wrote:


"José Herculano" wrote in message
. ..
I remember reading that one of VF-17s Corsair pilots was so small he had to
"get creative" to be able to use enough rudder on take off. Sometimes you
see a picture in which it looks like there is a contortionist gorilla in
the cockpit.

I know there are some size guideliness, and also know that there are
waivers signed here and there.

My topic proposal is:

Do you have some good stories to tell about guys that were really too big
or too small to be in that particular cockpit?

A long time ago, I knew an AF pilot at Tyndall who regularly flew with about
ten pounds of lead weights in his speed jeans. One day he forgot to put the
weights in, plane caught fire, he was too light to eject, rode that flaming
beast (delta dart) all the way back, landed it, walked away smoking.


"Too light to eject"??? Never heard of such a thing during 23 years of
tactical aviation riding a whole variety of boom-seats. We had a
maintainer commit suicide at Korat in '73 by prying the banana links
off of the sear on a Martin-Baker in an F-4 while leaning over the
canopy rail. Seat didn't seem to mind that nobody was sitting in it.

The only thing lead weights in the pockets of the G-suit would do is
insure severe leg fractures in any sort of high speed ejection.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org

Ed Rasimus wrote:
"Too light to eject"??? Never heard of such a thing during 23 years of

I think this means the seat will accelerate so quickly that there is
a much higher than normal risk of injury. I've heard of this once or
twice, usually regarding female pilots.

Putting lead weights in your pockets seems like an unlikely solution
to me too.

Ya put lead weights in your pockets of yer g suit and you may end up with no
feet...when ya eject.
P. C. Chisholm
CDR, USN(ret.)
Old Phart Phormer Phantom, Turkey, Viper, Scooter and Combat Buckeye Phlyer

....And - if you DO keep your legs - lead weights make for an interesting
swim once you splash.

--
Mike Kanze

"We all know the modern American campus, or think we do: concentration
camps of the mind where students are tortured by baby-boom professors whose
speech codes, leftist politics and unseemly obsession with race, sex and
gender have distorted the ideal of higher education."

- Philip Terzian


"Pechs1" wrote in message
...
Ya put lead weights in your pockets of yer g suit and you may end up with
no
feet...when ya eject.
P. C. Chisholm
CDR, USN(ret.)
Old Phart Phormer Phantom, Turkey, Viper, Scooter and Combat Buckeye
Phlyer

Mike Kanze wrote:

...And - if you DO keep your legs - lead weights make for an interesting
swim once you splash.


Naa, interesting walk. Hold your breath until the shore or run out
of breath, whichever happens first

(BTW, my reply only came up with your text, everything after the "--"
got deleted- one more reason to use Netscape and not Explorer... neat
trick!)

Jim Carriere wrote:

(BTW, my reply only came up with your text, everything after the "--"
got deleted- one more reason to use Netscape and not Explorer... neat
trick!)

I don't know how to break this to you Jim, or more properly,
these to you but;

a) If by "Explorer" you mean Internet Explorer, it is not a news
reader, aka news client.

b) If by "Explorer" you mean Outlook Express, when I used it [for
a very brief period before getting real email and news clients],
it would, indeed, observe the "-- " [dash dash space] properly
formed signature separator, and delete the sig.

c) In fact, all self-respecting news clients have always
recognized a properly formed sig separator, and deleted the sig
when one replies to a Usenet post.

It is not a "neat trick", it has been a part of the NNTP protocol
since before there ever was a WWW, or Internet Exploder, or
Lookout Express, or Netscrape.

ObNostalgia: Bring back tin, bring back Mosaic, bring back
***CONNECTION LOST***
--
OJ III
[Email to Yahoo address may be burned before reading.
Lower and crunch the sig and you'll net me at comcast.]

Ogden Johnson III wrote:

Jim Carriere wrote:


(BTW, my reply only came up with your text, everything after the "--"
got deleted- one more reason to use Netscape and not Explorer... neat
trick!)


I don't know how to break this to you Jim, or more properly,
these to you but;

a) If by "Explorer" you mean Internet Explorer, it is not a news
reader, aka news client.

b) If by "Explorer" you mean Outlook Express, when I used it [for
a very brief period before getting real email and news clients],
it would, indeed, observe the "-- " [dash dash space] properly
formed signature separator, and delete the sig.

Woops, I did mean Outlook Express. I fired it up to see if there as
a difference, and it didn't clip after the "-- ". Must be something
you can set on that program. Come to think of it, I used to know
that. They say memory is the second thing to go, what was the first
again?

c) In fact, all self-respecting news clients have always
recognized a properly formed sig separator, and deleted the sig
when one replies to a Usenet post.

It is not a "neat trick", it has been a part of the NNTP protocol
since before there ever was a WWW, or Internet Exploder, or
Lookout Express, or Netscrape.

Right there with you on self respecting news clients.

By the way, I'm not sure from your .sig whether you even bother to
use Yahoo, but their spam filter is far far better now than about a
year or two ago. I only get a few, uh, interesting emails a day, and
some days none (at one point is was 10-20 a day).

ObNostalgia: Bring back tin, bring back Mosaic, bring back
***CONNECTION LOST***

I first read this newsgroup (and many others) using tin... Brings a
tear to my eye thinking about it, no mouse, no light, no motorcar

Ed Rasimus wrote:
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 22:19:03 GMT, "Aardvark J. Bandersnatch, MP, LP,
BLT, ETC." wrote:


"José Herculano" wrote in message
...
I remember reading that one of VF-17s Corsair pilots was so small
he had to "get creative" to be able to use enough rudder on take
off. Sometimes you see a picture in which it looks like there is a
contortionist gorilla in the cockpit.

I know there are some size guideliness, and also know that there are
waivers signed here and there.

My topic proposal is:

Do you have some good stories to tell about guys that were really
too big or too small to be in that particular cockpit?

A long time ago, I knew an AF pilot at Tyndall who regularly flew
with about ten pounds of lead weights in his speed jeans. One day he
forgot to put the weights in, plane caught fire, he was too light to
eject, rode that flaming beast (delta dart) all the way back, landed
it, walked away smoking.


"Too light to eject"??? Never heard of such a thing during 23 years of
tactical aviation riding a whole variety of boom-seats. We had a
maintainer commit suicide at Korat in '73 by prying the banana links
off of the sear on a Martin-Baker in an F-4 while leaning over the
canopy rail. Seat didn't seem to mind that nobody was sitting in it.

There are limits for minimum ejection weight -- one of the things that had
to be done to accomodate female pilots was test seats at lighter weights.
AFAIK, it's not so much that the seat won't go with a lighter passenger, but
that it will accelerate too fast and increase the odds of injury.

This article from the Air Force Safety Center talks about the testing done
to expand the weight range of the ACES II seat. Looks more like a testing
and validation issue than a hardware modification, but I think later seats
may have a weight setting that can be adjusted to maintain a safe ejection
speed.

http://afsafety.af.mil/magazine/htdo...ag98/aces2.htm

Likewise, BUMED lists a minimum weight of 100 pounds for all aircrew
designated for ejection-seat aircraft, and notes that aircrew under 135
(IIRC) are to be cautioned that they are at increased risk of injury during
ejection. See Section 1.2:

http://www.nomi.med.navy.mil/Nami/Wa...pics/exams.htm

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when
wrong to be put right." - Senator Carl Schurz, 1872

http://www.nomi.med.navy.mil/Nami/Wa...pics/exams.htm

What a pain... I would have met this standards... failed my flight school
application because I had 18/20 uncorrected in the right eye.

Perhaps for the best, because cocky as I was at the time I'd probably had
bought the farm performing an immature stunt... but it still pains.

_____________
José Herculano

José Herculano wrote:

http://www.nomi.med.navy.mil/Nami/Wa...pics/exams.htm


What a pain... I would have met this standards... failed my flight school
application because I had 18/20 uncorrected in the right eye.

Jose, the vision standards vary over time. The post-post cold war
drawdown overmanning backlash has ended and a mini drawdown, if you
will, seems to be the way things are headed right now. So I bet
things like medical waivers may tighten up soon for a few years.

Just my educated guess/opinion on the big picture.