You don’t. Under dire circumstances, I suppose you could unstrap and use your helmet bag. Keep in mind typical sortie lengths are not that long (although this has changed since the GWOT). Nowadays… I’m guessing those pilots just regulate themselves.
Typically, F-16s aren’t up in the air that long. Even loaded out with full ferry fuel, I don’t think you can keep one in the air longer than maybe five or six hours (like if you’re trying to deliver it to an airbase in the aforementioned ferry configuration). I don’t know about you, but I’m easily able to plan my poops ahead if I know I won’t have an opportunity to for five or six hours. All else fails, I can hold it a lot better than Number One.
Back in the day, I remember riding as a passenger in a C 47, which was the military version of the DC 3 airliner built in the 1930s and 40s. I clearly recall watching cars on the highway below us pretty much keeping up with us as we were flying into a stiff headwind.
I believe that this model of aircraft was a major player in the Berlin airlift.
The amenities were tubular aluminum webbed seats. It was loud and very slow, and really quite interesting.
C 130s were the only aircraft in which I’ve been airsick, and I’ve been in a number of different aircraft …the sound of those turboprops somehow did something to my inner ear.
Now the ride in an F 4 on the other hand…
Ah yes, the C-130. Fun times. The webbed jump seats suck all kinds of ass, not so much for the webbing but from the damned aluminum support bars.
C-130’s aren’t pressurized so even flying From Okinawa to the Philippines we all were freezing are asses off.
I took the initiative and yanked out my poncho liner and crashed in front of a jeep that we were also transporting. My platoon sergeant didn’t say anything, so what the hell? This was back in 1984 so the humvee was just starting to show up. I was tired as hell and trusting the loadmaster enough so that the jeep wouldn’t run over me.
The things you do for blessed sleep in the military.
They are, but the heating system is primitive at best, full on/full off. The crew cares less about you than they do about themselves, which is as it should be since they’re the ones doing the flying. You’re just self-propelled cargo in the back.
Not to dispute you Airman Doors but the C-130 we flew on had about a five foot gap at the back of the plane, you could see the sky, oh yes. Kind of like a clam shell half closed.
I know your the expert here and maybe the Air force guys were just screwing with us.
Before I clicked, I was guessing loud, smelly, butt-chafing, stomach-churning and hot/cold.
It appears I was dead-on.
If they had the cargo door open, yep, that’s exactly what it would look like. Which leads me to ask: why did they have the cargo door open with pax?
Maybe I’m mis remembering, it was 24 years ago but I could swear the back was open the entire flight.
Would there be any reason to do this? Is this considered unsafe? We were obviously flying at a low enough altitude where oxygen was not a concern.
I’m not sure why I thought C-130’s were not pressurized, but this flight was not the first or last that the back door was open while in flight.
Older model perhaps?
I’ve flown in a C-130 to Ross Island, Antarctica. We were known as “moveable cargo”. Very noisy, no windows, and then there was the aforementioned “honeypot”. We were pretty packed in. I wore earplugs and had a book. The heating system was on, I think, but we were wearing full antarctic gear anyway, so didn’t notice. My favorite part was when the announced we were “past the point of no return”, ie we didn’t have enough fuel to turn back, and were committed to landing on the ice shelf even if the weather turned nasty.
I’ll second what others have said, especially about the C-130. Noisy, loud, cold, uncomfortable and the airline food was particularly bad.
Welcome to the US military dirtbags!
Not a cargo plane, but a military jet none the less. I have spent 13 hours on a B-52. The only good part was getting a month of flight pay for sitting on the floor for 13 hours.
For those of you not familiar with these fine jets, there is room for 10 people in the cockpit. There are 6 ejection seats. Behind the pilot/co there is a small instructor pilot seat. It has absolutely no leg room. Downstairs behind the nav/rnav is an instructor nav seat. Not a bad place, but the urinal is literally at your elbow. Number nine is on the shitter. And finally there is the 10th man position. 10 man can be on the bed, but he must be belted onto the floor behind the IP seat for takeoff/landing. There is a half hammock attached to the ceiling for him to lean against.
There were 7 people on board. The bed and shitter stacked were full of bags, gear, and extra equipment that we were taking home with us. Guess who was lowest ranking.
Sitting on a hard floor for such a long time, with the engines vibrating causes you to go painfully numb in the extremities. There is no place to go, no one to talk to, and not even room to stand up and stretch. Even a good book and a full MP3 player get old after a while.