Виктор Некрам

#многабуков
"Unlike American and Canadian aircraft designers, those of British, French and Italian aircraft did not cater for pilots’ bladder needs. As early as 1939, Canadian and American designers provided aircrew with what was crudely known as ‘the pee tube’. This consisted of an extendible funnel on the forward edge of a pilot’s seat that connected to a tube leading to a low pressure point on the underside of the airframe. Considering the restraints of harness, parachute straps and flying overalls, it was awkward to get one’s twin to the funnel, but at least it catered for minor misdirection and there was ample suction to take the urine away. Our Trojans did not have this luxury, so I had learned to manage seven hour recce flights. But there was one day when things did not work out too well.
In spite of the normal pre flight precaution of ‘emptying the tank’, on this particularly cold day I was in need of a pee even before I crossed the Zambezi still flying outbound. Two hours later with much ground yet to cover, I could not hold out any longer. There was no bottle or similar receptacle in the aircraft and, though I thought about it, opening the door in flight was fraught with peril. However, next to me on the right hand seat was my bone dome (pilot’s crash helmet). There was no option but to use it. The weather was particularly turbulent when I undid my seat straps, opened my fly and raised my body against the rudder pedals to get things into position. Head support webs within the bone dome compounded the problem of turbulence and fully stretched legs. As soon as I let go, the high pressure stream struck the nearest web, spraying urine all over my legs and onto the instrument panel. I managed to change direction, but in no time the shallow basin of the bone dome was close to over flowing. Forced stemming of the steam was essential but at least my discomfort had been reduced. The next problem was how to get rid of urine in the bone dome. To allow it to spill inside the cockpit was simply not on because urine is highly corrosive to aircraft surfaces.
My window was always open during recce, so I decided to hold the bone dome firmly and spill the urine into the outside airflow. As I did this, my arm was almost ripped off as the slipstream sucked the bone dome through the window. The disturbed airflow blew back most of the bone dome’s contents into my face, wetting half of my torso and the whole instrument panel. I managed to hold on to the bone dome but the rest of that long flight was miserably cold and uncomfortable" (с)