Most people are familiar with the sage green “pickle suits” worn by pilots. Some of us have worn them, and the rest of us have seen them from Top Gun to CNN.
The suits have two-way zippers, so using a “relief tube” would not pose a problem to male pilots. A guy I used to work with who was in the USAAF in WWII said that a WASP delivered an aircraft once, and the flight log said “USED RELIEF TUBE”. He wondered how she did it. (Of course, there are ways for women to use them. My question is not about relief tubes.)
Flight suits are one-piece. Airplane drivers often have nice bases or ships to return to. But Army and Marine helicopter pilots often do not. A friend of mine was a Black Hawk pilot in Gulf War 1, and she mentioned having to live in camps out in the desert.
So how do pilots in primitive areas handle defecation when they’re wearing flight suits? In Vietnam there were two-piece Nomex flight suits for Army helicopter pilots. Pretty easy to drop trou there. If you’re at a base, it’s pretty easy to take down a one-piece flight suit so that you can use a proper toilet. What if you have to squat in the bush? It seems a bit problematic. I can imagine you’d take down the top part and pass it between your legs so you can hold it out of the way in front of you.
Exactly how is it done?
(Bonus question: What’s with the minimal amount of toilet paper that comes in the MRE packet? Do people cary extra bog rolls with them?)