[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The AF weights are all optimized for cross-country runners, which is seemingly what the AF wants; not us stocky fireplugs.
[/ QUOTE ]Heh. Around the time of Gulf War I, a buddy of mine from AFROTC washed out of UPT (at Willy, incidentally) for chronic airsickness and was retained into a squadron section commander job in one of the maintenance units at Hill; he made it his mission in life to hound what he called the "anorexic twigs" who didn't meet the lower end of the weight standards on the grounds that most of them were just as out of shape and unfit for duty as the Airman Jellydonuts at the upper end of the spectrum. In the appearance-conscious AF, these skin-and-bones types usually escape such attention because they look ok in uniform, but couldn't lift a 5 lb bag of flour to save their life. Vince struck back for us fatties, and for that, he's my hero.
And for what it's worth, stocky fireplugs with slightly high blood pressure tend to have better G tolerance than cross-country runners, so you've got that going for you...which is nice.
[/ QUOTE ]
Aloft,
Long live us big guys!!!!
That's funny about your friend, yet so true. We've got a couple of those guys in my unit too. They're about 6'0" or 6'1" and one guy is around 135lbs and the other guy is probably about high 140s They probably wear a 34 (chest) Long flight suit and I swear they're under the damn AF weight limits for their height. But as you said, no one notices these rails, even though they can't lift a damn thing.
To go with what you were saying, I was at Holloman AFB at the centrifuge with one of these guys and he had a hard time passing the thing. For the centrifuge, you need to be able to sustain (I forgot the exact time periods), but the Gs were A-10/F-15E: 7.5, F-15C: 8.5, F-16: 9Gs with the centrifuge seat reclined 30 degrees. This rail had a resting G tolerance of 3.3!!! So he had his work cut out for him. I personally hate Gs, but my resting tolerance (at least back then) was 6.6. So qualifying was no big deal. But some guys had to really work to barely pass.
And a sidenote for those that've never experienced the "pain" of the centrifuge. I've met people that think the centrifuge would be "so much fun". Truth be told, it's painful. It's painful when you're at about the top of your Gs, and even you're using the breathing techniques taught to you, the pain of having the Gs crushing your chest and not allowing you to inflate your lungs...with the resulting feeling of suffocation...is painful. You ride the centrufuge without any of your G-tolerance equipment (which just squeeze the hell out of you just the same). Interestingly, females also seem to have good G tolerance. One female life-support officer was going through testing while I was there qualifying. They took her up to 11.8 Gs (or there about), and she was hanging in there.....
