Relieving in flight

A small hand towel is also nice to clean any spills.

Women pilots....sheesh, adult diapers are likely the easiest because of their "plumbing" and most glass seating positions.

Right.
But that isn't the whole story.

I always laughed when relief continued to be mentioned "every" weekend over almost 20 years. Dealing with new students and new owners, all the options were discussed. Repetitively. I always started by saying - it must be addressed if you want to be a more than 2 hours aloft pilot, cross-country or not. As a physiologic issue, it becomes a safety issue if 'ignored'.

On one of my early planned max-flight time straight outs, I proved that TWO diaper layers were not enough. I was happy to have a change of lower halfs on board. Since my landing was on an airfield seven and a half hours later, it was simple to clean up in the restroom and use fresh clothes.

I had tried the Willliams option of a soft funnel to an external bag and could not make it comfortable in a singleseater. Others might find it okay, depending on cockpit layout (trim location handles, stick boots, seat pan depth), chute straps and belts, and torso lengths.

Finally, when I began doing some long-duration wave flights (23 hours airborne in 36 hours), I found that self catheterization to a leg bag pair of 4 liters capacity was the right combination. I entered the cockpit with hose and shutoff down the interior of my pantsleg. Hookup to bags happened before seatbelts on and cockpit closed. For flights at multi-hours in Flight levels... the bags often froze, but not the leg lines. Towel for disconnect kept the glider clean.

Considering the additional inconvenience of having to have prescriptions for the equipment, per-flight expense,the discomfort, the potential for infection/etc. - I don't have much sympathy for worries of trimming hair, adhesive removal or failure of glue joints. You folks with hoses have it significantly easier.

If a gal wants to talk with me about it all, send her to me.

Cindy B