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Old 13th July 2020, 09:52
Richard Aigner Richard Aigner is offline
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How did fighter pilots cope with excretions (urine & excrement) on VLR missions?

as in A6Ms on escort mission from Formosa to the Philippines, or P51s from Iwo Jima to Japan. Can not have been fun sitting for hours with a wet bottom in a freezing cockpit.
As an aside, on hikes in the Himalayas we were told to drink a lot at altitude to compensate or increased evaporation. Did this also apply to high altitude missions in unpressurized cockpits, thus increasing the urgency of coping with excretions?
TIA, Richard
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Old 13th July 2020, 22:19
RSwank RSwank is offline
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Re: How did fighter pilots cope with excretions (urine & excrement) on VLR missions?

The P-51 has a relief tube. A description of its use is here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=rB...20tube&f=false


A drawing here, item 67: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5d/5b...23d17fd345.jpg


There is some information on the VLR flights from IWO here, along with mention of the relief tube. Such flights were 7 to 8 hours long:

http://www.506thfightergroup.org/mustangsofiwo.asp

Last edited by RSwank; 15th July 2020 at 17:26.
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Old 14th July 2020, 03:51
Dan O'Connell Dan O'Connell is offline
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Re: How did fighter pilots cope with excretions (urine & excrement) on VLR missions?

Excellent article re: the 506th. I normally concentrate on the European airwar, so I learned a great deal. Thank you for posting it.
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Old 14th July 2020, 19:19
ClinA-78 ClinA-78 is offline
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Re: How did fighter pilots cope with excretions (urine & excrement) on VLR missions?

My good friend, the late Max W. of 364th FG wrote to me how uncomfortable it was to make a 6 hrs-trip to Berlin with a cold and diarrhea at 30.000ft in a P-38. The relief tube was of no use in this case... His Sqn Doc said something like that "cork your a... and fly".
Those bad physiological 'mood' explained partly why the P-38 performed rather poorly at high altitude.

ClinA-78
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Old 19th July 2020, 01:26
edwest2 edwest2 is offline
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Re: How did fighter pilots cope with excretions (urine & excrement) on VLR missions?

In some cases a bucket had to be brought along. With a cover and tightly secured when not in use. That was the case with some bomber missions.

Last edited by edwest2; 19th July 2020 at 02:05.
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