Stupid Questions about Naval Aviation (Part 3)

[Pags]

So we can lose people when they fall in the water?

If youre worried about water entry and eventual recovery then you'd have a uniform with retroreflective strips, blinking lights, and flotation on it. Which is why people who have jobs that involve increased risk of water entry wear PPE covered in retroreflective strips, have survival lights on them, and wear flotation.

Your joke just got engineered.

 

[Jim123]

The digi pattern lets you spill shit on your uniform and nobody notices. But that is only a small benefit to looking like the Iraqi Police.

 

[phrogdriver]

I'm told that nomex is very expensive to put camo patterns on.

The cost/benefit is not worth it.

BTW, that "paint spilling" excuse for aquaflage is the dumbest thing ever. Is it better to spill paint on $50 coveralls or $150 aquaflage? As if that gray paint won't be noticeable on a mostly blue came pattern.

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Why are regular working uniforms digitally camouflaged? That's the far more perplexing question.

I don't know but damn it made it hard to find my sailors on the ship

 

[sevenhelmet]

If youre worried about water entry and eventual recovery then you'd have a uniform with retroreflective strips, blinking lights, and flotation on it. Which is why people who have jobs that involve increased risk of water entry wear PPE covered in retroreflective strips, have survival lights on them, and wear flotation.

Your joke just got engineered.

You clearly have upper management potential.

 

[Uncle Fester]

Hell of it is, the Navy put a lot of thought into Aquaflauge. They had that damn concept in work for, what, five years? But the Navy did what the Navy does, tried to come up with something useful that’d please everyone and wound up making something shitty that no one liked.

If only there was another seagoing American armed service who had similar requirements for a shipboard utility uniform and managed to use the same basic design for over a decade. We could adapt what they use. But that’s crazy talk.

 

[Gatordev]

The digi pattern lets you spill shit on your uniform and nobody notices.

When I spill something on my uniform, it gets noticed. Wait, we're talking about a flight suit right? Ohhhhh....you actually wear the NWUs....that's right, I forgot.

 

[Swanee]

If youre worried about water entry and eventual recovery then you'd have a uniform with retroreflective strips, blinking lights, and flotation on it. Which is why people who have jobs that involve increased risk of water entry wear PPE covered in retroreflective strips, have survival lights on them, and wear flotation.

Your joke just got engineered.

Hence why the Air Force doesn't cover their helmets in reflective tape and have a spot for a strobe to put on them. I think we even have rules about how much of the helmet has to be covered in white reflective high vis tape, right?

 

[Flash]

Hence why the Air Force doesn't cover their helmets in reflective tape and have a spot for a strobe to put on them. I think we even have rules about how much of the helmet has to be covered in white reflective high vis tape, right?

IIRC it is 70%.

 

[ea6bflyr]

IIRC it is 70%.

8.2.1.1 Aircrew
a. *Protective helmet — The helmet shall be 100 percent covered with
white reflective tape except as modified by approved aircrew system changes.
Up to 30 square inches of light-colored reflective tape may be applied so
long as the white tape remains visible from all directions. The use of
reflective tape may degrade NVD performance. Temporary, nonreflective cloth
covers may be worn over the reflective tape.

 

[jmcquate]

Temporary, nonreflective cloth
covers may be worn over the reflective tape.

............Corps Clause?

 

[Pags]

Temporary, nonreflective cloth
covers may be worn over the reflective tape.

............Corps Clause?

There are times when you might want to cover your reflective helmet.

 

[nittany03]

Despite the fact that Big Navy will tell you that it's there to hide paint stains I'm convinced the true reason is that the Navy started exploring he concept of a Cammie uniform by asking the troops what they wanted and about that same time urban camo was super cool and the Sailors they asked wanted to look cool. And then the narrative was changed to make it seem like there was so.e thought that went into all of this (as anyone who has ever worn NWUs could tell you it's pretty apparent that no thought went in to the uniform at all).

Because choosing policy by polling 18-23-year-olds was such a great idea.

 

[Flash]

Despite the fact that Big Navy will tell you that it's there to hide paint stains I'm convinced the true reason is that the Navy started exploring he concept of a Cammie uniform by asking the troops what they wanted and about that same time urban camo was super cool and the Sailors they asked wanted to look cool. And then the narrative was changed....

The Navy started looking at a new working uniform because; 1- They hadn't settled on a decent working uniform since getting rid of the original dungarees, which frankly needed updating but they couldn't get that right and 2- Everyone else was getting on the multicam bandwagon wince the Marines went their own way with their digis, so why not go with some sort of blue pattern since Navy=blue?

The hiding stains BS was an excuse some came up with later in the process, a legend along the lines of the Marine one about how they developed their digis all on their own when they got the basic design from the Canadians.

Hell of it is, the Navy put a lot of thought into Aquaflauge.

They did....but then they also didn't. A lot of thought went into the pattern but it seems like they didn't go beyond that, like making it fire-resistant or otherwise more wearable for shipboard use. A lot like the first iteration of PT shirts that no one apparently bothered to work out in since it turned out they were see-through when they got wet. So now we have ended up with a green version of digis that says 'Navy' to no one at all. All of this courtesy of the Navy Uniform Board/TFU, a seemingly useless entity that hasn't decided hardly anything useful in the last 20+ years.

If only there was another seagoing American armed service who had similar requirements for a shipboard utility uniform and managed to use the same basic design for over a decade. We could adapt what they use. But that’s crazy talk.

Hear, hear! I always thought the USCG fatigues were a great design we should adopt but since it wasn't invented here....

 

[Uncle Fester]

They did....but then they also didn't. A lot of thought went into the pattern but it seems like they didn't go beyond that, like making it fire-resistant or otherwise more wearable for shipboard use. A lot like the first iteration of PT shirts that no one apparently bothered to work out in since it turned out they were see-through when they got wet. So now we have ended up with a green version of digis that says 'Navy' to no one at all. All of this courtesy of the Navy Uniform Board/TFU, a seemingly useless entity that hasn't decided hardly anything useful in the last 20+ years.

Hear, hear! I always thought the USCG fatigues were a great design we should adopt but since it wasn't invented here....

The 'non-fire retardant' thing is a Naval Enquirer-created 'controversy'. We've never had a fire-retardant shipboard working uniform for the non-snipes. Dungarees/wash khakis and SWOveralls were just cotton or poly-cotton...not like dungarees were made of nomex. Flash-proof was the only requirement, so that's the standard they used for NWUs. But the Navy Crimes talked about aquaflauge like it was going to spontaneously combust.

So the 'flameproof' thing is bullshit. But other than that, no, I can't say much to defend Aquaflauge. A 'working uniform' that's good for anything but actually working. The Navy got caught up in a fad (everybody needs their own licensed camo pattern!) and tried to rationalize it into something workable. They clearly put a lot of thought into the NWU's...just not much wisdom.

The Coasties have been wearing ODUs for about 15 years now, with only one major change (from a tucked-in blouse to untucked with waist pockets). NOAA and PHS have adopted it as their working uniform too. I will never stop being amazed at the Navy's compulsion to constantly re-invent the wheel just because we can.

The goddamned TFU hasn't produced a good result, to my knowledge, in its entire history.