Everything In An A-10 Warthog Fighter Pilot's Bag | Loadout | Insider Business

we also have what's called a hammock so a helmet mounted queuing system it is a monocle that basically will put any of those different features so if you've got a Target that we've designated on the ground we can look over at that particular Target and see it no kidding red triangle that's over top of it as long as it's four-sided correctly hi everyone my name is Captain Lindsey Johnson my call sign is mad today I'm going to show you everything that I take with me to the jet when I go to fly the A-10 the standard helmet we've got here we've got a black visor this is if I'm gonna go fly kind of a normal cross-country flight or an instrument sortie nothing that requires necessarily too much as far as like tactically speaking goes so I'll usually put that on there we keep the cover on it so that way it doesn't get scratched up because when you get out to the aircraft the crew chief will throw it up in front of the hood and you want to make sure it doesn't get scratched up uh the helmet itself it's got the standard masks we hook into our what's called like a crew 60 that's actually in the aircraft it's what Hooks our oxygen hose to the oxygen that's on the actual aircraft itself uh and that's where the oxygen will come flow through into my mask we'll make sure that everything is clear it's not uh dirty that we actually are able to we don't see anything that's going to be impacting at least our ability to talk here and then you just give it a once-over to make sure hey all of my normal audio connections are plugged in for me I fly with what we call Access so it's specific earplugs that we use to plug into the helmet itself it's formed molded to the inside of my ear so when you see I wear them like this it's a lot better for me you probably hear me talk a lot louder now but it's a lot better for our ears we can hear the communications a lot better so typically if you fly with regular ear plugs this thing is still plugged in but for me I plug in before I get into the start engines and everything I plug into there have these on have my helmet on and I can hear everything through these earplugs rather than normal foamy earplugs that you see so for me I usually just make sure hey this is actually still good and that this is unplugged for me uh but it's typical helmet for us has got what they call a nape strap so this is what helps keep the helmet fitted to the back of your neck it goes like right under your actual nape of your head and stays fitted onto your head so if you have to eject for any reason the helmet is going to stay properly on your head and then we also have good ear foamies that cover up your ears to help keep you an additional ear protection for the loud engine noises in the inside the cockpit other things for the helmet itself we have what's called a lip light if you look uh it's right on the inside of where you would actually it's going to look weird when I actually do it but no kidding you can see this right here if you push on that that changes the actual light on or off so you know kidding just put your tongue out like this to turn it on and then back off again this is uh huge at night for us to be able to have so if I'm writing on my kneeboard and I need to be able to see the piece of paper rather than turn on a bunch of lights and affect my night vision I have this little lip light that I can just turn on quickly make sure I'm seeing what I'm writing down or see what I wrote down previously and then turn it back off so usually what we do if we're not flying on nights we keep this unplugged to save the battery for it generally what we say if we're flying nights if my lip light's not working it's an emergency and which is not serious but we feel like it's an emergency because uh you don't hate not being able to see things in the cockpit so generally I'll show you what I do once I uh make sure my helmet's good to go throw the helmet inside the cockpit or inside the helmet bag put that in there I've got my water bottle that'll typically put in there next thing I'll talk to you about is the harness so for us each of us flies with the harness since we're in an ejection seat aircraft so our Jackson seat is the Asus II it's a seat That's rated for zero zero so we're moving we're at zero feet and zero knots so I could be canopy clothes sitting in the aircraft and have an issue and I need to eject and the canopy should open up safely for us so standard stuff for the harness we've got a chest strap right across here and then we've got two leg straps so uh they've got you know three contact points for us both with the legs and then across the harness uh over here when we were uh I didn't talk about this with my helmet but we also have what's called a hammock so a helmet mounted queuing system you've probably seen some pictures of it let's see if there's any helmets that are here I'll borrow this guy's helmet we can talk about it uh it is a monocle essentially they're fairly expensive uh but they have a whole electrical cable that will go through to the cockpit and it'll plug in down here you'll plug in on the actual harness itself and then you actually will put it through here so that way hey if for any reason we need to eject this is safely there to keep you so our monocle it's hooked up to our aircraft we have moving Maps we've got different ways we can designate targets we can see other aircraft that are airborne it is a monocle that basically will put any of those different features so if we've got a Target that we've designated on the ground we can look over at that particular Target and see no kidding red triangle that's over top of it as long as it's four-sided correctly so it's it's really actually fairly accurate it allows us to just add more have more information as to what we're seeing in a battle space which helps us out a lot so a little bit bigger of a visor that we've got that will go over top of it and you can turn this on and off uh with a button that we've got on our actual um sticks using what they call hotas so Hands-On throttle and stick so right eye over here is where we're going to be looking uh generally looking out over our canopy um from the right side and we can see other aircraft that are airborne you can see different targets friendlies those type of things out on the ground so when we go to step to fly generally for us as A-10 Pilots we generally fly with two kneeboards these kneeboards are used to put any of our data cards or any pieces of paper underneath products that we have when we're flying we'll place them here on our knees so when we're flying we have a quick access to be able to fly and then typically Pilots will fly with what we call like a pencil tab holder they'll easily put their pencil in here they can keep flying the Jet and then quickly just go and write on the kneeboard like that so usually when we brief with students we've got data cards that we talked to it goes over hey what's our take off time what time are we going to land and what airspace are we going to who are we going to be talking to then any other pertinent information so once we finish briefing we'll put our piece of paper on our data card we'll go up to our step desk where we get any of the applicable information for our flight that day we get what tail and spot that our aircraft is at so the tail number for the aircraft where we're going to be going as we step we throw that on there and then we'll put that in our flight bag here so our pubs bag that we all fly with for us up on the A10 itself right above or right in front of our HUD we have a place on our glare Shield that we can place this pubs bag so pretty large you can fit a lot of different stuff in it but what we'll do is right in front of us the HUD right in front of the HUD it'll sit up here like this in the aircraft itself Cubs bag is that short for something Publications bag so use it used to be before we had electronic flight bags or iPads we used to carry all paper Publications so you'd have to stuff everything in all these Pockets what kind of like Publications do you carrying yeah so for us we've got any of our what they call like Tech data so if you've got any emergency procedures hey I've got a hydraulic issue I can quickly touch that go to the hydraulic issue pages and reference the particular pubs Pages as well as we have what's called an in-flight guide so flying in the local area it's kind of like a quick reference guide for us for people that we talk to airspaces we go to frequencies that we use as well as hey if you've got any emergencies these are you're no kidding minimum fuels that you need to have to be able to go to a different uh Airfield for bad weather or emergencies that you particularly have so all good stuff that we've got that's just right at our fingertips when we're flying so now rather than having a bunch of paper pubs we have two of these that we'll throw in here along with our typical knee boards that we fly with we throw all of that in there and then for us generally as well I've also got kind of like a kneeboard that I can use for my electronic flight bag that will just slide on here so I'll show you at least an easy thing for that I can throw that on here put that on my knee and then I've got my one piece of paper over here that I can write on that's generally what I use for like cross-country flights throw that in there and make sure I've got all the applicable pubs and pieces of paper that I need sometimes now that we don't have paper pubs you'll tend to see Pilots will put snacks Waters all that kind of stuff in there for the longer longer cross-country flights that we've got the next thing I'll show you is the G suit so for us that is what we use to be able to help uh go against any um G's that we're undergoing under uh any flights so for us it's a requirement if we're expected to pull more than four G's in fight we need to be wearing a g suit however typically we wear a g suit every single flight for us so uh there are bladders air bladders that are inside of uh the G suit we've got ones in front of our actual stomach so to help our stomach muscles add muscles to push up against as we're pulling geese and then we've got Waters all throughout our Lakes as well so through this tube here as we're hooked up to the aircraft itself through our bleed air it will actually push air through here as we're starting the aircraft is starting to go under under G so if I'm going to be undergoing about 4GS I'm going to be feeling like I'm I'm pulling about three trees with the use of a g suit what does it feel like as it kind of inflates I'd probably equate that to putting a blood pressure cuff around your whole entire waist and your and your legs is what I would feel what it kind of feels like against you why is that important when you're experiencing G's to have that yeah so for us to have this this helps when you undergo G's generally it's going to pull pull the bud away from your heart down to your outer extremities so when you undergo G's and you have a g-suit that's going to help push the blood back towards your heart keep you from having any weight loss and such and things of that nature so keep you from being you know fit to fight be able to keep flying so for us in the A-10 generally we don't endure more than 5gs for a whole lot of time we can't sustain it kind of like the F-16 but for us at least we're able to pull G's and then this is going to help us you know keep from having any weight loss so things that we've got on here Each G suit has a pocket for a hook knife so for any time if we're under if we have to eject and we end up under canopy and there's any issues with some lines we have line overs we're able to cut up to four lines of those that are having any issues so generally each pilot will fly with their own personal life but we also have this you know right over our leg to be able to grab for under a canopy as well as you know if for any reason we're uh in an area that we need to utilize on a knife we've got that there as well um so the g-suit itself will go around your waist it's got two buttons to button itself and then a zipper to come back up and then over here this is uh these are where we can loosen it up as we're actually putting the g-suit on on our legs and then once you actually get the pants on you'll tighten it up so it's tighter around your legs we've got two G suit straps as well so if people didn't before they kind of embedded knee boards that I showed you earlier uh people would put their data cards or any paper that they need products to reference they'd put it here um on their actual g-suit legs itself for me what I do is I keep my flight gloves here so when I have my G suit actually on I can just pull those off before I do my walk around of the aircraft uh recently uh only in the past few years we've actually gotten approval to be able to have uh flight gloves that have up to three holes in their fingers usually it's hey you're going to have all your fingers covered well all the reasons why this is useful for us so when I'm using my iPad I can actually hit the buttons on my iPad rather than have to take the whole entire glove off use the actual buttons on the iPad and then put it back on I'm sure you've seen some gloves in the winter time where you can open up your phone and text on your phone with the gloves or with all your fingers covered but it's just not always 100 accurate and works for us so we got approval to accept the risk that hey if we were to have you know fire in the cockpit uh that we're gonna have you know three fingers that are exposed for us um but so we've got these flight gloves that we'll wear I usually put them on just prior to my walk around of the aircraft and I keep a bond until I'm outside of the aircraft afterwards and then for me I'd say you know you'd probably if you ask like percentage-wise of people that fly that fly with contacts or with glasses I don't know the exact percentage but now that it's approved for people to have correct corrected lenses to fly with uh for me I fly with contacts I've had contacts since I was in the seventh grade but if you're going to fly with contacts you have to get through an approved contact lens program but while I'm flying with them I am required to have my glasses with me in my pocket at any point in time so that way if I'm flying I have an issue with my contact and I have to take them out then I can quickly grab my glasses so these are not anything that you'll see in Vogue or fashion type of glasses they're the standard issued you know kind of like BCG type glasses oh gosh okay so I can't see now because I've got both the contacts and the glasses on but uh nothing that you're gonna probably be catching anybody asking for your number in these things but uh hey I'm so flying on an airplane if I had to wear them so I had to keep those there in the pocket uh for me I usually always carry some tissues with me because uh no matter what the nose always seems to run uh afterwards and then other than that I generally just keep an open pocket for hay I've got a long sortie I've got a snack in my pocket or things along those lines that you've got uh but yep two pockets here that we can keep generally their glasses some people will keep if we're going to fly nights they'll put a flashlight in their pocket things along those Natures so no requirements other than having to have your glasses in there for those specific Pockets itself this is everything that I would take with me to the jet as a fighter palette foreign [Music]

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 594,394

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, A-10 Thunderbolt II, US Air Force, Pilot, Air Force Pilot, Loadout, Boot Camp

Id: jniiYpNcEvE

Length: 16min 14sec (974 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 06 2023