Fireproof Clothing One Can Pee Out Of

Fireproof clothing that doesn't need to be removed before urinating: is that too much to ask? I have asked this question before on this blog, but then it was more rhetorical, Now I'm actually in the market for Nomex flightsuits compatible with in-flight urination. Preferably in company colours. (Protip: if you want to save money on flightsuits in company colours, make your company colours navy blue or khaki). So I turn to the first resort of anyone in the 21st century looking for anything: Google (because my phone isn't new enough to have Siri).

Try and guess what the entire first page of Google returns for "flight suit reviews" consists of. Just try.

Unless you guessed diapers for pet birds, you guessed wrong. You'd be close if you guessed Halloween costumes, like this one, that comes complete with Top Gun patches and aviator sunglasses. Or the kid-sized replica of the NASA Advanced Crew Escape Suit the author of this blog entry started out reviewing, before she got distracted by thinking about what it would really be like to be an astronaut's mother. And then there are the ones that don't seem to be costumes, but marketed like costumes, as though their primary customer just wants to look like a pilot. They sell a women's flight suit, at about a hundred and fifty dollars more than the typical men's price I've seen, but I'm not sure whether the mark-up is for the smaller woman's market, or because this is for people who want "genuine, authentic flight suits like real pilots wear," as opposed to those who want to put genuine fireproof clothing on real pilots. I'm also wary of ordering a "women's flight suit" that is only available in men's sizes, and is sold on a page with the html title "MENS POLYCOTTON FLIGHTSUIT".

When I do find women's suits listed, and this one looks pretty good, it is sometimes difficult to determine which is the corresponding men's suit. I don't object to the men having a much greater selection of styles nor to the women's ones often being more expensive: I do understand economies of scale. I just want there to be a corresponding men's suit to the one women's suit on offer. These are, after all, intended as a uniform. I want male and female crew members to have the same pocket layout and styling, for the overall look even if what's underneath our zippers is a little different.

Because of the difference under the zipper, I'm looking closely at the styling, trying to work out how I pee in there. If the zipper went far enough down, I could get a portable urinal in there. If there's lots of extra room in the legs, I guess I could get the bag to hang down one leg while I used it. Some of the pictures don't even look like they would make it convenient for the males to engage their equipment with a relief tube. Zippers are men's natural enemies, right? And I'm still not finding reviews of flight suits intended for those without cloacae. If you wear or have worn one, and are not an incontinent bird, let me know what you think of yours, what features you like or wish it has, and whether you can pee in it without, you know, peeing IN it.

I hope I can find a better solution than this style, although I do appreciate the fact that the vendor charges less for the women's version, in light of the reduction in fabric required. I'm seriously tempted to buy that last one and show up in it on Halloween.

Hazard Mitigation

I hear cursing from the operations manager's office and go to investigate. A new client requires all their contractors to submit worker safety hazard mitigation plans for hazards that could exist on the job. We're all for safety. We've had serious discussions on how to mitigate the risk of slip and fall due to water spilled from the water cooler. (Confession: the spilling is usually my fault. I always put too much water in my water bottle and then displace some when I put the cap on). So taken individually, the hazards and need to mitigate them seem reasonable, but when I see the laundry list of hazards our mitigation document requires I can understand how this has caused temporary insanity in the ops manager.

Bears. How will we mitigate the hazard to workers caused by bears? We will not open the doors of the aircraft if there are bears observed in the vicinity. We will not carry uncaged bears on the aircraft. We will not stay at hotels infested with bears. We can't carry bear spray because in an unpressurized but none the less reasonably closed and confined space, the risk of spraying ourselves far exceeds the possible benefits.

Heat/cold stress: How will we mitigate such hazards? We will wear appropriate clothing. We will use the heater and air cooling vents as appropriate. We will drink water and eat food. We will use the sweat glands and shiver reflex that biology has provided us with.

Dehydration: We will mitigate the hazard of dehydration by making potable drinking water available to all crew members at their stations, and drinking it.

Weather fluctuation: We will mitigate the hazards of weather fluctuation by following the basic instructions we learned from our mothers or other caregivers around the time we learned to dress ourselves and walk to the park to play. We will wear appropriate clothing, monitor changing conditions and choose alternate routing or end the mission if the weather proves challenging.

Solar radiation: We will wear sunscreen. And hats. And really cool aviator sunglasses.

Try it. Try to explain with a straight face how you will mitigate the hazard of slipping and falling while boarding an aircraft, and then go on to explain how you will mitigate the hazards of bee stings, fallen trees, earthquakes, traffic accidents, stabbing oneself with the pointy end of a pencil, and encounters with a man wielding a mango. You can do a few, but after a while you end in profanity, sarcasm or wondering sadly about the fate of humanity when workers need a written policy to know when to come in from the rain.

First Full Day of Summer

Today (that is the UTC day, not necessarily your local day) is the first full day of summer. In the latitudes I have been operating in there was snow a couple of weeks before, and it doesn't mean there won't be snow tomorrow, but the sun has set once since it had its moment overhead the Tropic of Cancer, and will remain north of the equator until the equinox in September. Yes, it's odd that we've settled on what is also known as Midsummer's Day as the beginning of summer, but it is pretty close to marking the date of the beginning of warm weather in the northern hemisphere.

As announced earlier, today is also the date SunglassesShop.com is sponsoring a contest in which you can win a pair of SXUC mirrored aviator-style sunglasses, specifically these ones. SunglassesShop.com sells expensive brands, as well, but the website copy makes it clear that SXUC is not an expensive brand, just fun, but they do have UV400 protection. (For work I use expensive sunglasses, but when I'm not working I typically wear sunglasses in about this price so that I won't scream in pain when they get sat on, scratched, or lost. I get my optometrist to verify that they have the advertised UV protection, and he puts them in a machine and tells me they do, even though he's the one who sells me the expensive sunglasses).

After considering various options for the workings of a contest, I've decided that we will play nosewheel roulette. On my next flight, I will mark and photograph a chalk line on the left side of the lowest point of my nosewheel tire during preflight. Then I will taxi, take-off, fly an entire flight and return to parking, at which point I will disembark and re-examine the chalk mark. Your task is to predict how many centimetres clockwise around the circumference of the tire the chalk mark will appear once the airplane is stopped. This may be at the fuel pumps or it may be at the final parking location, wherever I first get an opportunity to photograph and measure it for you.

The total circumference of the tire is 128 centimetres, giving a giant roulette wheel with 128 possibilities, from zero to 127. Post your selection in the comments, then back it up with an e-mail to me with the subject Sunglasses. Your e-mail should contain the same guess, so I don't need to sort out which Anonymous or which David is which, when I need to contact you for your mailing address. You can also save that step and put your mailing address in the e-mail. I won't use it for anything except maybe sending you a postcard sometime, unless you win in which case I will send it to SunglassesShop.com so they can send you your prize. If you live underground and don't need sunglasses, or want to play for glory only, and prefer to cede your prize to the next runner up, you can put that in the e-mail too.

Don't pick a number someone else has chosen, because I'll give priority to the person whose comment appears first. If two guesses are equidistant either side of the correct location, that's okay because there are two pairs of sunglasses available to be won. If there is some added complication I haven't thought of, I'll do my best to be fair.

There will also be a booby prize for the entry furthest from correct. The booby prize is a second-hand (or possibly more) aviation-themed decorative towel in extremely questionable taste. Someone sent it to me and after I looked at it, it went right back into the envelope waiting for its next victim.