Yeah, I know, it boggled me too, when I read it, and rather than explain it, I’ll link to it and quote it
Now the gentleman who wrote that served in the RAF after WW II, and while I realize that, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go, but I thought they issued air crews urine bags on planes that didn’t have toilets installed. Was it really common for folks in military planes to just open a door, whip out Mr. Happy and let ‘er rip? Did our boys, on bombing runs over Germany, expose their naughty bits that they might piss on Hitler’s head? Should the ending of Dr. Strangelove have featured Slim Pickens takin’ a different kind of dump out the bomb bay?
There were urinal facilities in many bombers, but cold was often a worse problem. I dont think there were crapping facilities, hence the third anectdote
In the direct flow of a forty mile per hour wind, minus 20 degree ambient temperatures felt like minus 100 on the skin. Harry told stories of the crew urinating in cardboard boxes mid flight because the stream would freeze before it hit the box http://www.450thbg.com/real/biographies/franz/franz.shtml
Did they have any ‘facility’ on the plane? “They had it just for urinating – but it wouldn’t work at altitude, because it would freeze. So one time that I had to do that – behind the ball turret, on the floor, there is a clean off hatch that when you turn the guns to the tail of the plane your glass is right where you can open – reach the hatch and wipe it off if it gets oil on it. So you flip up the floor and it had some little zerk fittings and flip up the metal because it was conformed to the bottom and you could just stand there and urinate through the hole in the floor. I had to do that a couple of times.”
http://carol_fus.tripod.com/army_ac_hero_cwmavor.html
According to White they flew to Newfoundland, then the Azores, then Morocco. White recalls that “While we were flying across the ocean the tail gunner had to have a bowel movement and since there was no bathroom on the bomber, we used a cardboard box for a toilet. After using the “toilet” he called the pilot and asked him to open the bomb bay so he could throw it out. But instead of going out, the box flew back into the waist of the plane and interrupted a card game that was going on. Everyone rushed to the front of the plane.” http://www.456thbombgroup.org/white.html
I couldn’t find what you were talking about in the link but from my experience in the RAF in the 50/60s working on the “V” bombers they did have some facility for passing water. It took the form of a rubber bag with a short tube leading to a chromium plated funnel with a hinged lid.
On a related note, the RAF version of the VC10 had a proper trough type urinal for its male passengers.
Sorry - ain’t no way that urine at body temperature freezes before it hits a cardboard box, unless the temperature is way below -20. I’ve peed at -40, and the stuff is definitely liquid as it hits the ground.
You simply cannot, repeat, cannot throw light objects out of an airplane traveling at high speed.
Airplanes used to be equipped with a relief tube for urination and your clothing for defecation. I think aviator’s pressure suits are now equipped for such purposes since with in-flight refueling flights can easily be long enough to require it.
The relief tube was just a rubber hose with a small plastic funnel on the business end. The urine was vacuumed out by the aspiration of the air flowing past the exit hole in the fuselage skin.
You were required to note its use on the Form 1A (I think it was 1A although it might have been Form 1) after the flight.
My late stepdad was a mechanic in WWII. I had asked him the same thing when I was younger, and he related that there was indeed a tube with a funnel-sort-of-thing on it on the planes he worked on (I don’t know the exact type, alas, but I want to say “P-51B Mustang” or “Flying Fortress”).
My sister got a ride in an F-15(?) this winter. I was summarily subjected to the pictures and the accompanying explanation. Modern pilots do wear about six different layers of clothing, including what (I believe) is affectionately referred to as a “poop suit”. It’s similar to a wetsuit or something, worn in part in case of needing to eject over the water, and also to contain any bodily excretions that need to be excreted during the flight.
:dubious: And I humbly apologize for my momentary lapse of any ability to obey the rules of English grammar. “Worn, in part, in case they need to eject over the water…”
it may depend on the quality and purity of your pee! conentrated urine wont freeze as well.
see Please Pass the Science
however mythbusters says you are right
Holiday Myth #3 - Can urine freeze before hitting the ground? They use fake urine wheed into a freezer of a temperature of -70 degrees. This myth was quickly disproven - no freezing. It does not happen, well, not in the US anyway.
I seriously doubt that even pure water would freeze as it falls, even at much lower temps than the anecdote claimed.
And I note that your link says something that surely is wrong:
If you could promote violent evaporation of a lot of water, the remainder might be cooled below freezing and solidify. But at 35 F with 8kts of wind (about what’s needed for a “wind chill” of 30), you’re not going to see any ice forming.
I guess I should have said out of the side, top or bottom. Things are routinely dropped from cargo planes out of the back, cargo loading door. The airflow past the plane, at least for bulky objects, acts like a wall that kicks the thing right back at you. Don’t ask me why.
In fact even rather dense objects of the wrong shape are hard to get out of a plane. At the naval base where I worked we had an A3 attack-bomber that had internal bomb bays. There was a project that required dropping the old style, blunt nosed practice bombs. So they were batting along at maybe 350-375 kts., opened the bomb bay doors and released a bomb. It hit the slip stream, bounced back up into the bomb bay, rattled around and dropped down again, hit the air stream and bounced again. I wasn’t involved in the project so I’m not sure how they got rid of it. Probably came over the drop area and slowed down to traffic pattern speed.
And it wasn’t only internal storage that caused a problem. There were many reports of external stores being dropped and following the plane along closely until the pilot made an abrupt turn away to get them to leave.
Externally carried ordnance is now carried on ejection racks that give the store a strong push to get it out of the air flow around the plane. And the shape of the bombs is now slender with a relatively long, tapered nose. Much more streamlined than the WWII bombs.
I don’t have a highly technical explanation for this, just the statement “air currents” and a suggestion that you drive down the freeway at maximum legal speed, roll down a window, and try to throw dry, wadded up kleenex or the like out of the car for a demonstration of why this doesn’t work.
The size/weight/density of an object that can be thrown out of airplane varies with speed and to some extent the architecture of the fuselage.
By the way - civilian pilots needing relief who can’t land conviently frequently use beverage containers, such as pop bottles or paper cups (large ones are best). In unpressurized airplanes the daring may attempt to pour these out an open door or window, though many opt for restraint and disposal after landing. There are companies that sell various bags for containing bodily fluids and solids, including the occassional vomit for those excreting at both ends. And some gliders still have “relief tubes” for those long-distance and endurance flights. There are even adapters available to make such plumbing more compatible with female bits.