Weird a silicon-like pants that strapped up so there was no leaks (like fisherman’s pants), that has a vacuum you attach (almost catheter style) isn’t used. Actually now that I think about it, it’s weird that astronauts aren’t using catheters 24/7!
also apparently an infection risk
[1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-03-23-me-542-st...
[1] (NSFW lyrics!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd9_RffdmBA
Doing barrel roll, twist and speed up - radio to airliner „see buddy can you do that?”
Airliner „wait a moment” - some time passes nothing happens - airliner „hey buddy you seen that?” - f16 „what? Nothing happened” - airliner „I went to toilet on the back, took dump, made myself a coffee and strolled back to cockpit”.
I suppose in an emergency they just shit their pants, but I wonder what the ground crew says when they touch down.
I'm not talking doing menial work while skipping lunch.
A full belly can causes problem if you get wounded.
Besides, I doubt our ancestors went on the hunt with full bellies. I go jogging, but never after a meal.
If I'm busy, I also do not notice being hungry, even if I haven't eaten in 16+ hours.
One more thing. I hitched a ride with autocross racer. While I was strapped in tight, when he'd make a hard turn my guts would slosh over to the side, which was rather painful. The fix was to bear down hard on my abdominal muscles. I expect it would be much worse with a full belly, and a fighter pilot is going to be pulling lots of g's.
But surely there's a middle ground between "heavy lunch" and "skipping lunch entirely" for a multi hour combat sortie?
Many people cannot focus (especially over long periods of time) on an empty stomach.
> If I'm busy, I also do not notice being hungry, even if I haven't eaten in 16+ hours.
Combat sorties are hours of boredom where you have to keep attention just in case, followed by an explosion of frantic action. Unless you're a combat pilot I'd say your experience doesn't apply here?
A favorite Luftwaffe tactic was to come up from behind, catch the tailgunner unawares, and rake it with cannon fire and get an easy kill. If the tailgunner was awake, he'd fire a few rounds of tracers (while out of range) to let the 109 know he was on the bounce, and the 109 would usually back off.
His cohort suffered 80% casualties.
> Many people
are not fit to be combat pilots. The AF is very selective. (I didn't qualify, as I wear glasses.) They work hard to weed out slackers, people of low intelligence, sloppy people, unhealthy people, dishonest people, etc. They'll even reject you for a speeding ticket.
I did say I thought it required constant alertness... over long periods of boredom, a bad combination. It's hours of nothing punctuated by frantic action. Worse to be keeping a watchful eye on a completely empty stomach, I'd say. Happy to be contradicted if your dad told you he flew long combat missions on an empty stomach...
I also think long combat flights with aerial refueling are longer now than in the WW2 era, right? Excluding maybe bombers, but surely bombers did have toilets, even if minimalistic?
> [many people] are not fit to be combat pilots. The AF is very selective.
I'm sure of this, but we're discussing a very specific thing. The other person who replied to my topmost comment, who also seems to be speaking from experience, assured me pilots don't select on this particular basis. In fact, this person said fighter pilots do shit themselves and earn nicknames because of it.
I once went parachute jumping. I did not eat beforehand (and we were advised not to!).
Good news for gassy food lovers is the cabin pressure changes make everyone fart, there's no one else in the cockpit to hear or smell you, and even if there was it'd be loud and they'd be wearing an oxygen mask. Little victories.
When RAF pilots went to the Soviet Union to help the Soviets, when the first frost came the pilots were horrified when the women brought out big vats of fat and ladled it out. But after flying in those cold temperatures, they realized the fat was just the thing to keep them warm!