Anthro Whammi?!

[Dave Shutter]

Frumby...

I just blew back into P-cola from a very beautiful month of OHARP and a buddy told me that I'm on a list of guys NPQ'd from T-45's due to anthros. I'm only 6'0, but I know it goes by extremities lengths and not overall height. I have to take a look at my asnthro sheet and see what it says. Any info or advice...thanx

Hey Vic' let me know what's going on with you...

 

[Mahler]

I've had some reassurances over the weekend about all this anthro B.S. I went to an airshow and pretty much everything in the Navy's inventory except a prowler was there. They even had four super bugs. Anyway, I got a chance to check out the T-45 and there is plenty of room in there. It doesn't look like it from the outside, because the sunscreen comes back so far, but I would definitally fit in it with no problem. If that wasn't enough, we had a little shin-dig at the local Holiday Inn with the Blue Angels and I got to talk with the #3 guy for a while. He's 6'4" and has a good half inch on me. I told him what happened with me with the anthros at P-cola and he said don't even worry about it, they're on crack down there. Well, he didn't exactally use the work crack, but you could hear his frustrations in his politically correct, family show answers. He said he had no problems in the T-45. From what I've been hearing (from people I keep bugging) is that a cockpit fitcheck is the ultimate determiniation. And I'm sure if you do well in primary and keep hounding them, eventually they'll sit you in a cockpit just to shut you up. Any more ideas on this frustrating topic???

P.S. you'll have to excuse my bad spelling, I sure didn't major in english!!!


James

 

[Dave Shutter]

Frumby: disregard

Whew! That was a nice little scare! I met with the ATS director on my little anthro issue, the funniest LCDR I've met to date, and he threw me in the anthro chair and did the measurements manually. Apparently it was my sitting height because that was all he checked but he immediately said I was fine for T-45's and all other jets but that Prowlers are definitely out. That's no problem for me. Sorry Major, it would have been nice to exchange Warpig stories some day but alas, not to be.

We discussed the new anthro system they use, for those of you who don't know you sit in a chair and a video camera snaps your pic and the computer places a graph over your image, measuring your sitting height and length of your limbs. It's supposed to be more accurate but my faith in it's a little shaken. It does look expensve though. He said it measures a bit on the conservative side so people at or above 6'0 tend to come up as too tall when in fact they're fine most of the time. He said it's no accident and they do that on purpose so they get a good second look at the tall guys before they're approved for TACAIR.

If I had still been too tall that would been some serious irony, being done in by a video camera! The film gods getting back at me for my career 180'!

Mahler: you have to remember that it's not overall height but individual measurements. Sitting height and your knee-to buttock length usually get people. I know it's hard to imagine, but someone taller than you can fit a jet and you can't sometimes.

My question: If the original measurement was correct, and I'm okay for the 14/18/S-3 but not the T-45 then where the hell is the logic in that? Having a Trainer that excludes SNA's from 3 of the fleets jets anthro' wise?

 

[Frumby]

Dave, Glad to hear that you were NPQ'd from the family truckster. Personally, I had to sign a waiver because I didn't fit the seat either. You will find the "ChickenHawks" seat difficult as well. You'll fit but ergonomically, its a pain. To be in the proper body position in the seat forces a person over six feet to sit low in the cockpit. It sucks during guns, ACM or TacForm. Personally, I just said to hell with it and ran the seat all the way up leaving a small gap between my helmet and the canopy (depending on the flight). I just like to be able to see EVERYTHING! Due to the lack of vis and my apprehension for neck strains, whenever I would fight in the 45, I would set a stiff throttle friction and modulate the seat up and down depending on the aspect of the engagement. I used to laugh at how funny I must have looked at the bottom of a roller looking at up at my quarry, my seat run all the way down, my rudders all the way up (I always fly with my pedals as close to me as possible, just preference)and my head tilted to the side of the seat. I can almost understand what a woman feels like with her feet in the stirrups at the gynecologist. All that to prevent neck and back strain. Those of you who think pilots just sit and move there head from side to side...guess again. Well this is pretty long winded answer Dave but congrats for dodging another bullet. After everything you've been through to get to flight school, I'm going to have to come to your winging!! Semper Fi! Frumby

Attack Pilot
Major USMC

 

[Jack]

Defensive ACM started yesterday for me and my mighty "chickenhawk"... I really wanted to play golf this weekend, but I'm so damned stiff and sore that I think I'll just be watching it on TV. Frumby - I didn't quite follow what you were saying about the advantages of running your seat up and down in the 45. If I run mine up too far, in an effort to increase vis, then I end up having to contort to come back to the HUD for any type of Snap or Tracking shot. Any advice on this topic will be greatly appreciated.

jec

 

[Frumby]

Jack,
As an SNA, play the game through your HUD. Your just learning...learn the basics and build on from there. The HUD in the 45A is really worthless and we learn not to rely on its information. IP's I mean not SNA's. I can't speak for the 45C. Never flown it. Your engagements are canned and very few are free flowing. By moving my seat up and down, I was able to "contort" my body in a more advantageous and sometimes less painful ways. You flew the aircraft so much that you knew what a good tracking or raking shots was and didn't even need to look in the HUD. As long as the HUD camera showed me hitting my mark, I rarely used the HUD in the 45A. Speaking of the HUD, to give an example on how worthless I thought it was, I refer to bombing. I always had CEP's consistently under a 80' from the back seat by just using the front cockpits wet compass on/off light swicth as a pipper. I be lucky to maintain an average of 105' from the front seat. Why? I don't know. This was true for a lot of IP's and it just reinforced our lack of confidence in the system.

Attack Pilot
Major USMC