CWU 27/P FLight Suit Pocket Content

[m1ashooter]

I worked with aircrew member for years and just now started thinking about what the suits pockets were designed to hold. All I ever saw was a wallet carried in a breast pocked and flight cap and gloves in one of the lower leg pockets. I've done a search but cant find anything specific.

 

I've taken to wearing one around the house and find they are more comfortable then sweats.

[horridohutch]

If you decide to sleep in one and launder it properly it could save your butt in a night time house fire..... !

[m1ashooter]

Naw don't sleep in anything.

[VP_Association]

Smokers used to put a pack of cigarettes in the shoulder pocket and a lighter in one of the breast pockets. I used to store my foam or plastic ear plugs in the shoulder pocket. I'd also put a black grease pencil for the radar scope and a black, blue, or red felt tip pen to annotate the MAD tapes in the two pen pockets on the shoulder. I'd store my nomex goves in the right leg pocket. My wallet normally went in my flight jacket but if it was warm I'd put it in the left breast pocket. That's pretty much it. I never really used the other pockets on my flight suits when I was flying for the Navy.

[MattS]

Ok, speaking from an army aviation standpoint, early 1990s, I will give this insight. Left arm pocket: pen and pencil outside, earplugs inside. Left chest: wallet. Right chest: mini notebook (pre-cell phone days when we had to write things down). Inner left thigh: mini-Mag flashlight. Lower left leg; aircraft checklist. Lower right leg: CPU-26 whiz wheel. ID tags worn without any covering (like 550 cord) worn outside the collar but tucked in at front, flight jacket over the flightsuit (I always kept my gloves in my coat pocket), and everything else in the SRU-21P vest. Not that there was any official way of carrying stuff, that's just my recollection.

[Lee Ragan]

I was around a lot of aircrew while in the Air Force, but only wore flight suits in the Civil Air Patrol. A barf bag went in one of the lower leg pockets. (Flying @ low altatude in the summer here in Texas meant LOTS of turbulance, so barf bags were a good idea.) The other lower leg pocket usualy had my flight cap. Smokes, lighter & ball point went in the left shoulder pockets. (Got rid of that nasty habit.) Other leg pockets got charts & assorted paperwok if needed while the chest pockets carried my wallet, keys and a handkerchef.. The survival knife pocket on the inside of the left leg is where I carried my pocket knife. I mean, after all it was made for a folding knife. Air Force crews carried the orange switchblade survival knife in this small posket and it was tied via a length of cord on one end to the knife and the other to the grommeted hole above the pocket.

None of this was standard. Guys just put what they needed in the pockets how ever they wanted to carry their stuff. Of course a flight jacket would change up how this was done.

[juvatwad]

I don't know what they are designed to hold, but when flying, they don't need to hold anything. Your G-suit and survival vest hold everything you need (if you're in fighters, anyway). That's why the tradition of tearing of that dumb little flap with the lanyard for the knife pocket came about. When you got a fighter out of UPT, you'd tear that thing off, because the knife is in the G-suit.

[FtrPlt]

Other than being issued flight suits, I don't recall ever receiving training, recommendations, or advice as to what goes in the pockets. I never carried checklists or other flying stuff (I carried a small canvas pubs bag for that). Items I did carry daily: wallet, keys, pens, and hat. In the field (Army), I would sometimes stick my pistol (lanyard around neck) into a breast pocket when wandering around; often carried the cipher-thingy for encryting the FM radios) in a breast pocket (another lanyard around the neck). I never saw anyone carry anything in the knife pocket. Not a good place for a mag light.

 

USAF/ANG was pretty anal about not carrying stuff in the pockets -- making one question why the pockets were even there. The McPeak-era suits eliminated the thigh pockets entirely plus made the lower pockets narrower. They did keep the side-zippers -- which I think were a legacy feature from back in the day when you wore the suit over the uniform.