SENSE

VG
90
.G18
1943
c.1
 SEN·SE

I
I I

ISSUED BY
AVIATION TRAINING DIVISION,
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF
OF NAVAL OPERATIONS,
U. S. NAVY • DECEMBER 1943
 HOW MUCH DO YOU WEIGH?

IF YOU WANT TO SEE, look out for g.

Yes, g stands for Gravity.
It stands for one times gravity.
You are withstanding one g right now sitting in that chair.
One g is normal. You have been withstanding
one g _a ll your life. When you come down in an
elevator and stop quickly you may withstand two .
g's (or more). Two g's means two tiines gravity
and they make you twice as heavy-momentarily.
If you jump off a chair and hit the deck with-
out bending your knees you can create 10 g's or
more-for a split fraction of a second. Your weight
is multiplied by 10 in that brief moment.
When you slow down, speed up, or change direction while walking-or in an
airplane-you create g's.

~
f~

"Okay," you say, "If I can withstand 10 g's jumping off a chair, why can't I
withstand 10 g's in an airplane without blacking out?"
3
 rhe winning answer is that you usually withstand the g's longer in an airplane Here are two g-men. They represent two times gravity. The ·e?{tra man hgpped
. \ for several seconds, not fractions of seconds. TIME is the thing. If you "took" . on when you made that 60° bank.
the 1g's which you created jumping off the chair for as long as several seconds you- You invited him aboard when you changed direction.
or rnybody else-would pass out colder
tha~ a penguin. Yo:ur blood-like the rest 8-9-IO YOU'RE.
OUT/.,

of you-gets heavier ·under the effects' of

g-.,sp heavy in fact that the heart cannot . !
pu~p it to the brain. The brain "starves"
I
fro,tn lack of oxygen-and WHAMBO-
ptit go the lights.
TAKE YOUR CHOICE
THERE ARE two kinds of g-positive and negative. One kind is when the brain Four or more g-men will hop in with you suddenly when you pull out of a di~e,
doesn't get enough blood and one kind is when the brain gets too much blood. depending on your speed and how rapidly you change direction. The faster you
are going and the quicker you pull out, the greater the number of g-men who will

How are they created?

When should a pilot expect them?

What are they?

ThesT questions and many others have been ans~ered for you-by the Navy's
research /facilities and by men like yourself-pilots and specialists-who have put
planes through their paces and recorded valuable data to give to you, in brief form: climb aboard. Engineers call the g-man "load factor." He can change the charac-
teristics of . your plane. In fact, about 10 or more of him probably will tear the
j : .
wings off any plane you may be flying!
THE ABC's OF g
HERE is the g-man. He represents one times gravity.

J -: .
\

He's in the plane with you before you take off.

4 5

THE g-MAN IS DANGEROUS IN NUMBERS!
To UNDERSTAND the forces at work in aircraft, and how g-men come into the picture,
you must know something about the physics of motion. The principles are simple
and familiar to everybody. The first is
INERTIA. You know what that means. A fellow who sits around on his backside
all day is full of inertia. Hard to start. Always tending to rest.
If you have ever tried to push a stalled automobile, you know how much harder
it is to get it started than to keep it going. That's why you start a car in lo)'V gear to
overcome inertia. Inertia also applies to things that are moving. You know what
happens in a crowded bus when it stops suddenly. Passengers are thrown forwar1
violently. They tend to keep right on moving in the same direction as before, until
they can resist this tendency by pushing on the fat lady ahead.
6 7
To put it technically, objects tend to remain in a constant state (at rest, or moving
at the same speed in the same direction) unless acted upon by an external force.
There always is an external force (friction, for instance) otherwise we would have
perpetual motion and could forget gas rationing.
AccELERATION is another familiar property of motion which deals with changing
velocities. If you have any gas and are driving at a legal 35 miles an hour and you
step hard on the accelerator, the car speeds up, or accelerates. Theoretically, if
there were no friction, its speed would increase at a constant rate until the cops
nabbed you for passing a red light.
Similarly if you were doing 90 and 'p ut the brakes on so as to stop in exactly 2
minutes, the car would decelerate, or be acted on by an acceleration in the opposite
direction, of 45 miles an hour per minute. We usually speak of acceleration in
terms of velocity per unit of time.
g is different, for it is the only kind of acceleration which is constant and to which
all objects on earth are exposed all the time-the acceleration d.u e to the force of
gravity. A free falling body in a vacuum will be acted on by gravity so that its
acceleration ~11 be 32 feet per second every second. Therefore, we can use the
acceleration due to gravity (32 feet per second) as our standard, and designate it as
a unit, i. e., g. One, g is an acceleration equal to that due to gravity; 2, g twice as
much; 3, g three times as much, and so on. This makes a convenient unit for ex-
pressing acceleration in any direction because it is always present and constant.
 We can talk about all rapid accelerations, such as those that
occur in airplanes, in terms of g-the force of gravity that gives
us weight. If it were not there, we'd all be lighter than a feather.
One g isn't bad and it i~ pulling downward on everything
all the time. You don't get into much trouble with one g.
Actually the trouble that g causes is because it is all mixed up in
motion. Suppose you speed up or slow down a car. "g" comes
into the picture, this time in a fore and aft direction. (There_
is still one g pulling downward all the time.) "0. K." you
say, "but I hardly ever feel it when I step on it or jam on the
brakes." That's true, but how about a catapult take-off? You
get about 3 g fore and aft and need a rest to keep your head
steady so you can concentrate on the plane. Fore and aft g we call "linear" but nor-
mally it doesn't bother anybody very much in ordinary flight.
If you zip around a corner in your car you tend to slide over in your seat toward
the outside of the turn.
That's fine when your girl is sitting next to you, but if the road is slippery, your
car will skid. g has hopped on your car and on you, and you tend to keep moving in
the same direction as you were going. Which brings us back to the way g works on
an airplane. Any change in direction will put g on you and your plane. An airplane
in a turn or pull-out is constantly changing its direction. To keep the airplane in a
circular path, a force must be acting constantly toward the center of the circle-part
of the force obtained from the lift of the wings. The result of this force is to make
the airplane act as if it were heavier. It tends to keep going in a straight line, that is,
away from the turn, just as you tended-unconsciously?-to slide up close to your girl.
8 556068°-44-2
If you try to make an 80° banked turn in a Yellow. Peril at less than 100 knots,
you stall; if you make a sharp pull-out at too slow an air speed, you mush, which is
the same thing. Why? Because the g of centrifugal force makes your plane heavier-
and your Yellow Peril can't go fast enough at reduced throttle to give it the lift
required to fly. If you make your maneuver with enough power g will not cause
your plane to slip or stall.
What happens to the pilot when plus g comes aboard his plane? He weighs his
own weight times the number of g produced, exactly as the plane and everything in it
does. The plane stalls when it gets too much g for its flying speed and the pilot
blacks out when he gets too much g for his circulatory system. There is this
important difference, though. The faster the plane goes in a tight turn the more g
it can stand without stalling, but the more g the pilot gets in each turn the more
quickly he will black out. When the plane stalls the pilot doesn't tend to black out,
and vice-versa. When speeds are great and changes of direction are sudden, the
forces produced can run into large figures. A 200-pound man acted on by an •
acceleration of 10 g "weighs" one ton, and every organ and tissue in his body is
10 times as heavy as it is normally.
9
 . That makes his blood as SCALES FOR g
heavy as lead! No wonder
he blacks out. It would THE ACCELEROMETER: In airplanes we usually measure g by means of an acceler-
take a real iron man to ometer, which records the number of g-men placed upon it at any given moment.
stand it. Imagine your heart A 1-pound weight under a force of 3 g would act as if it weighed 3 pounds. The
trying to pump a lot of lead accelerometers used in Navy planes are so designed and placed as to measure gin
through your arteries. two directions, up or ne.gative, (-) g, and down or positive ( +) g. Negative g is
therefore a force acting toward the head of the pilot and the upper surface of the
The trouble-making g is the kind produced in a vertical di- wings. This instrument also has maximum-minimum hands, which record . the
rection, that is, in the ver_tical axis of the plane. That's because limits of g reached in the two directions. An accelerometer is a spring balance
you sit upright in your seat. We also can have sideways, or measuring a single weight under different forces. Of course, wh~n the plane is on
lateral g, in slips and skids, but that doesn't bother us much. the ground or in level flight, it records + 1 g, as gravity is working normally.
It's the vertical g that counts. It can work in two directions,
up and down.
If you make a banked turn or a pull-out, g pulls you down.
We call that posit£ve g. If you do an inverted spin or an outside
loop the g pulls you upward or toward your head. ~hat is
negative g. No matter how you slice it, it's still g. It's the same
force, only it's working in different directions on you. So you
call it by different names, positive or negative, depending on whether you're
right side up or upside down.

In inverted flight it records - lg, as gravity is pulling on the plane opposite to

its usual direction. Actually, when we speak of a plane pulling +9g, we mean that
+
-
+Bg extra was added to the 1g normally present in level flight; similarly, when a
maneuver resulted in -4g, we mean that the hand of the accelerometer went from

+ 9 g

REMEMBER.-lf you weigh a ton with 10 g on you, your body still isn't any stronger
th~n it was under 1 g. The same thing holds for a plane. A 5 ,000-pound plane under the normal + 1 to O and then to -4, or a total of Sg in the negative direction~ This
10 g wi.11 weigh 50,000 pounds, but its wings won't grow larger or stronger. And the instrument therefore, not only tells you how many g-men are aboard, but also whether
1
engine doesn t develop any more horsepower to pull it through a stall. they are riding on the top or bottom of your plane.
10
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I •
WHOA!
LIMITS IN PLANES: Some maneuvers in aircraft
produce considerable g over relatively long time
intervals. Of course, the greater the spee~ the
more g will result. Planes designed to maneuver
rapidly are stressed to take these forces without
going to pieces. The Bureau of Aeronautics has
placed restrictions on all planes as to the number
of g they can take safely. Know what these limits
are, so you will not overstrain your plane. If you
do, some day you will pmll a wing off.
PB's and TB's will take only 3 or 4 positive and 2 negative g's. SNJ's and SNV'S
Flight load distribution also is extremely important. If you are using your ailerons
or rudder so as to make _one wing bear much more than its share of the load, yo~ put a
terrific strain on one wing at a time when the g as shown by the accelerometer is not
excessive.
SOME CAN TAKE IT-AND SOME CAN•t
You CAN SEE that a heavy PBY can't stand much in the way of quick fnaneuvers.
It just wasn't built for it. An SB2C is different. It's built to take it. Apd when
i

will take only about 5 positive and 2 negative. 0S2U's will take 6 positive and 3 I
negative. I

it takes its limit, it weighs more than the normal weight of a Liberator filled with :·
bombs. The plane may take that limit-but you can't. You'll go out cold. You
Yellow Perils will take 6 positive and 4 negative. F4F's will take between 7 and
8 positive and 4 negative. The F6F3 has a "top" of 6.5 positive and 3 negative g,
and the F4U between 7 and 8 positive and 3 negative. Dive bombers will take about SAY, PAI.,
WHO IS
THc WE.AK
8 positive and 4 negative. .:._ SIST!oR.?

BUT-A lot depends on the load.

IF a wing will break wi~h a 50,000-
pound load, and it .normally carries
10,000 pounds, then 5 g-m~n will break
it. But if the plane is loaded so that
.the wing carries 12,500 p~unds in level.
flight, .it will take only 4 g-men ·to break could easily stand it for just a second, but unfortunately g-men in most combat maneu-
I

it. vers ride along for several seconds. And out you go.
Now we're going to tell you why.
12
13
 Your heart pumps blood through your circulatory system. Large arteries suc- WHAT g DOES TO BLOOD: Blood has

cessively divide into smaller and smaller vessels until there is a vast network of minute weight, and inertia. Because it is a
\

vessels called capillaries go- liquid, it can be driven around the body
ing through all body tissues. by outside forces. (If you swing a cat
It is in these thin-walled by its tail, blood will be driven into its
vessels that the blood gives head and drained from its feet. It's
up its oxygen to the tissues hard on the cat, so don't try this experi-
and receives waste products ment.)
in exchange. When you are subjected tog, blood is forced into parts of the body in the direc-
This used blood then goes tion of the fqrce, and away from those toward its origin. It takes time for these
into veins, soft-walled vessels forces to operate because of the 1nertia of the blood and its friction against blood-
which lead into larger and vessel walls. If the g is negative (as in the case of the cat) blood will be pushed into
larger pipes and eventually your head and your brain will get congested and fail ·t o work properly.
back into the heart. The
blood is then pumped
through the lungs, where it
gets more ·oxygen, and is sent
back again to the heart
where the cycle begins all
over.
If the heart doesn't get enough blood, it can't pump enough out to supply your
vital organs, especially your brain. If you take enough blood out of the body, there
w.o~'t he enough to pump around, and you'fl faint. Or, if you force enough blood
in-to°"one place where it can't be used, the same thing happens. Filling up the legs and
If the g is positive, there are a combination of effects which will result in black-
seat with a lot of useless blood has the·same effect as putting the blood into a bottle.
out if the g has enough time in which to operate.
First the positive g will pull the blood out of the eyes and brain. The heart pumps
faster on less blood because of the extra g's. At 5 g's or more, in fact, the heart can't
replace the blood supply to the brain.
It can lift blood approximately 5 feet
at 1 g (if that were necessary) or 1 foot
at 5 g's-and the brain is a foot or
more above the heart.
There is also a general disturbance
of the circulation due to the pooling
effect produced by continued pres-
sure of extra g's. The blood is forced
.down into the lower part of the body
14 15

I •
and the legs, where it collects in thin-walled blood vessels which under pressure will At about 4 g you are really squashed down
hold many times their normal capacity. and you may begin to "gray out." Every-
Even when a man stands up after a good night's sleep, his feet swell a little as thing looks gray and a little hazy. Your hands
blood begins to collect in them! Pressure in the veins when a man is lying down is are very heavy 1when you lift them, and you
about 5 millimeters or roughly one-fifth inch of mercury. Pressure in the veins of can't scratch your ear. Your cheeks feel heavy,
his feet when he stands is about 3% inches of mercury. Under the forces of acceler- and you begin to get woozy.
ation this may rise to as mtich as 30 inches-and 30 inches is a lot of pressure. At about 5 g, vision gets worse. Somebody puts a double-barreled shot gun in
It's easy to see that if this "pooling" of blood con- front of your eyes, and makes you look through it. You can only see straight ahead,
tinues long enough, the heart will have little or no and that not very well.
blood to pump. For example, if you are under
3 g's for as long as 15 seconds the result may be un- l
consciousness and circulatory collapse. The heart I
could pump blood to the brain against 3 g's of pres-
sure, but it just doesn't get the blood. This pooling
effect takes time, so it isn't noticeable in most ma-
neuvers. It takes time to create it, and time to get At about 6 g they cork up the end of the gun and out go the lights. Your head
back to normal after it has occurred. is buzzing and you're very woozy. The hand you were scratching your ear with
comes down on your knee with a bang. "This is blackout," you say, "and I don't
fancy it much."

YOU AND g
WHAT HAPPENS to you when you are exposed tog?
Positive g: When you are exposed to positive g for some time (several seconds),
certain sensations appear, depending on the number of g's and the time it lasts.
The most obvious one is that of heaviness. At 2 g it is
hard to walk. If you stand still, you don't notice it
much, but moving makes your feet fill with lead. Add
another g and you probably At about 6 or 7 g, you may pass out cold. Knocked out. By g-men. You may
can't walk at all. twitch and kick the controls. This can be bad for airplanes.
When you are sitting
down, 2 or 3 g give you a
sense of being pushed down
in your seat. If you try to
lift your hands, they feel
very heavy, but you don't
notice anything if you let
them rest.
16 17
 It takes a long time to tell about these things and they happen very quickly. The cause is of course an increased rush of blood to' the head, which nature did
Bear in mind that these figures are average. You may be the kind of guy who will not intend should withstand such congestion. The pressure may be great enough to
black out at 3.5 or 4 g. Or, you may be one of the peculiar boys who can still see
at 8. But most people get pretty blind when 5 g lasts for 5 seconds.
The cause of all these queer doings is the forcing of blood out of the brain and
eyes by positive g, the fact the heart can't always pump hard enough to get it back,
and the pooling of blood in the lower body and legs so that the heart no longer has ~-
~,.:-
I \
enough to pump. The eye is affected before the brain, because the _contents of the

cause rup~ure of blood vessels, particularly in the eye. Avoid negative g as far as
possible.

I.
eye are already under a pressure which ·opposes the flow of blood. The eyes may
grey out while the brain still gets enough blood for consciousness. Later, with
more g or more time, the brain also . is depleted of fresh blood, and unconsciousness
occurs. When the g is no longer applied, consciousness returns first, vision second.
When you get back to straight-line flying, everything reappears faster than it went Transverse or lateral g: When you're lying down with 6 g you don't feel anything
out. But you may stay woozy for several seconds and if you have really passed out, but some pressure; forces greater than this (up to 16 g) result in no disturbance of
you may be confused for a quarter or half a minute. vision or consciousness, but breathing gets difficult because your chest is so heavy.
Negative g: g applied from This kind of g does the least to interfere with your internal machinery.
the feet toward the head pro-
duces much more serious effects,
and you ·can take much less of it.
At -2 or -3 g, your face feels
highly congested, and you get a
throbbing headache. The con-
striction of your seat belt and / • \. _
shoulder harness are quite evi- / .. ~ \ ..."\
dent. At - 4 g your head feels _/'Y"
as if it were splitting, and you.
may see red, or "red out" with TIME-THE VILLAIN
loss of vision. After exposure to
negative g, mental confusion, headache, the twitches and the staggers come on. TIME as has been said, is what causes most of the trouble. Time and g are a bad
They may last for several minutes, or sometimes hours. combination. A man can stand many g's if they are applied for only a fraction of a
18 19
 If time and g are such a tough combination, why not cut doU?n time? Why not pull out
_second; his limits are set by the strength of his bones and
of a dive so fast that there won't be time for the g-men to get started? WHY NOT
joints to resist fracture. Blood probably moves very
MAKE SNAP MANEUVERS?
little in a shock, if at all, as it takes time to get going. But
when even less g is applied for a longer time, this inertia
If a man can stand + + +
15 or 20 g for a fraction of a second, and 10 g for a
is overcome, and blood moves in one direction or
second and a half, but blacks out at +s
g applied for 5 seconds, then why shouldn't
HOLO
ONTO he make snap pull-outs and turns so as to get around before symptoms come on?
another. When g is removed the blood does not flow YOUR
KATS/
for a short time, as inertia takes charge until it is again
overcome. The body can function fairly well for a 1•u FOOL
.EM FAST/
second or two after blood stops flowing and it requires
2 or 3 seconds for the effects of g on vision and conscious-
ness to take place. Shocks, bumps, snap pull-outs and
violent maneuvers (such as snap rolls), lasting less than 2
seconds, do not affect the distribution of blood enough
to cause trouble. If these maneuvers last longer than
about 3 seconds, the g-men will get in their dirty work.
ME?

TIME AND g-lNC.

Tms TOUGH COMBINATION of time and g work in a kind of mutual partnership. If
you get~ lot of g you may black out quicker than with less g and more time. If you
get a lot of time, it may not take as much g. For instance, you may black out when
6 g last for 4 seconds; or, you may black out when 4.5 g last for 15 seconds.
That would be a logical way of avoiding blackout if his plane were stressed to stand
such a violent maneuver. But this is a big IF. Most planes will shed their wings
under these strains. Most pilots with normal tolerance to g pull out of a dive just
under their gray-out threshold. But there are some-and their number gets fewer
all the time-who pull out so sharply that there is not enough time to gray or black-
out. They do not know how much they pull, and because they have no trouble
they believe it to be very little. But the plane may actually have taken a lot more g
than it was ·designed for. That's bad for planes. Sometimes it's lilies for the pilot.

20
 PROGRESSIVE STALLS: While we're on the subject of dives and pull-outs, a word needs
to be said about the unpleasant but important subject of g's and progressive stalls.
When you come out of a spin, you're in a dive, as Dilbert is in the accompanying
drawing. Dilbert obeyed that impulse to pull the nose up sharply as soon as his
A indicated airspeed was higher than the normal stalling speed. (A) He forgot that
the sharp pull-out-allowed two extra g's to climb aboard, increasing the wingloading
and raising his stalling speed several knots.
So he found his plane starting to stall and spin again and nosed over to pick up
more speed. At (B) Dilbert tried to pull out again, this time not quite so sharply,
but because of the increased speed still more g's got aboard, his stalling speed went
'way up, and-there he goes again! By the time he gets to (C) he's REALLy TRAVEL-
ING and this time when he tries to pull out, the load factor is almost as great as that of
a Flying Fortress! As Dilbert disappears from view (D) he is beginning dimly to
B realize that the wings of his plane are coming off, he is running out of altitude, and

~
I., that it would have been a good idea to develop a technique for bailing out!
The small plane in the same picture is piloted by Albert, Dilbert's smart brother,
I who kept in his first dive after coming out of his spin until the indicated air speed
was well above the normal stalling point and then pulled out slowly. Albert brings back
his planes with their wings on, and probably will run for the presidency of the Old
Time Fliers Club in 1994.
g-MAKING MANEUVERS: Some maneuvers, like the snap pull-out, produce a lot
of g on the plane without using enough time to bother the pilot. Cartwheels, snap
rolls, falling-leaf maneuvers, and wing-overs usually don't last long enough to drive
the blood out of your head. On the other hand, continued loops, flipper turns,
•'. pull-outs from dives, and tight spirals can black one out from too long application
of positive g. Likewise, outside maneuvers; such as outside snap rolls, inverted spins,
outside loops, and inverted dives can put enough negative g on you to make you
woozy. The amount of g depends on the air speed and the rate of change of direction.

Of course, the plane you're flying makes a lot of difference in the amount of g
that may be developed in certain maneuvers.
In Yellow Perils, you can produce enough g to black yourself out easily in a
diving spiral. If you do black out easily, you probably will do it in a tight

J'// I I
23
Immelman, loop, or flipper turn. Normal spins don't put much g on you, First-In fighters, you are exposed to
because you are turning close to your own axis. But inverted spins can put a lot a Ii ttle g for a long time, off and on, and a
on you, - 3 or - 4. The most g is developed in snap or stall maneuvers at high lot of g for a short time. When a moder-
speed. Most aerobatics develop less than 5 g. ate amount of g is applied long enough it
In OS2U's doing a normal dive and pull-out, extra g will be on the plane for can black you out just as thoroughly as a
4 or 5 seconds, and the maximum reached will be 4 to 6 g. A snap pull-out will large amount over a short period. In
last only 2 seconds and reach as much as 8 g. The difference between 6 and 8 g may either case your efficiency at turning
be the difference between flying home and walking. Zeros into junk for Tojo won't be im-
In SNJ's and OS2U's 4 or 5 g are reached during fixed gunnery practice. Some proved.
people black out during a roundhouse. Second-In dive bombers, you may
be exposed to a lot of g for a short time.
This isn't very serious, as long as you pull
out straight. If you black too severely, or
pass out, you may relax your pressure on the stick and crash before you come out
of it.
Third-When you're flying on instruments, and dope off, what is the first thing
that happens? A wing drops a little and you slowly start to spiral. That turn
indicator wasn't put there just to fill up a hole in the instrument panel, but you're
thinking of the blonde with the hair.over her eye . . . .
Where the g-men really begin to do their work is in fighters and dive bombers. What's this? Altimeter spinning one way and air speed indicator the other?
Pulling out from a dive in an SBD can put 6 or 7 g on you for 3 or 4 seconds and you · Must have gone into a dive. You haul back on the stick and g takes hold. You
will black out. A long gunnery pass in an F4F will put 3 to 4 g on for perhaps 15 wait a few seconds for the nose to come up, the air speed to fall, and g to leave.
or 20 seconds, and there the g begins to tell. The violent maneuvers of a dog fight But they don't. You start looking at your gyro horizon. What's the matter? The
will develop a lot of g off and on. nose won't come up. It's getting dark. You're graying. With your last confused
glimpse, you think you see the turn indicator swung over to the side. Brother, it's
too late. You've spiraled in.

WHEN DOES g COUNT? By this time you should have a strong suspicion that resisting
g is important. There are three special circumstances when blacking out may make
all the difference in the world.
24 25

•
 some people who are unusually resistant to black-out, and can stanc;l ~ much as
0°1< •.! FALL IN I
YOu'R.E G-OING TO WORI( +s g, and some who are unusually susceptible and black out at +3 g.
FOR.. ME AND AGAINST
JAPS!

It's different with negative g. There isn't much variation between people.
WHIPPING g Negative g, more than -3 or -4 for any length of time, is apt to produce serious
consequences. Neither planes nor men were built to take much negative g. You
"0. K" YOU SAY. "So if I put so much g on my plane I black out, that's alt There's
can't do much to change your tolerance.
nothing to be done about it."
You're wrong. There's plenty you can do. And plenty that other people can do
for you. Here's the "word".

\.\OW MANY ct,,.N

I TAKE 'FOR
~ow LONG?

But as for positive g, your tolerance, and everybody else's, will vary within
certain limits from day to day. Part of this tolerance is fixed, but the rest of it is up
to you. This is the dope for you:
When you expect to take g, get
ready 'to fight it. Get tense. A little
excited. There she comes! Tighten
It all boils down to a simple m·a tter of knowledge. Knowledge of your own your muscles. Squeeze the blood out
tolerance to g and the g tolerance of your plane. If you exceed your own you black- o.f your belly. Strain hard. You
out; if you exceed the plane's you crack up. Tolerance in planes is fixed by the may even want to yell. Go ahead,
designer, but pilot tolerance to +g varies in different people- · and in the same person nobody will hear you. P-O-O-S-H
from time to time. In general, the average man will either gray or black out if that old veil away from your eyes.
+ +
exposed to 5 g for 5 seconds, and become unconscious at 7 or 8 g. There are There ! You stay clear.

26 27

DoN'T RELAX AND TAKE IT! Pilots will tell you there's more g on the back seat
in a plane than the front. That isn't true. They think it is, because the back seat
guy often blacks out when the pilot doesn't. Why? Because the pilot is busy, tense,
occupied, working hard, while the back seat fellow is relaxed, and out he goes.
Keep in good physical condition. The best way of resisting g is with a good set
of muscles. Keep your belly muscles in trim. Get plenty of sleep. Physical fitness
is the most important single factor in increasing your tolerance.
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DoN'T DRINK MUCH LIQUOR THE NIGHT BEFORE FLYING. A hangover will reduce
your tolerance, more than anything else. Don't stay up too late. Don't smoke too
many cigarettes. Don't expect to be able to stand much g if you have a cold, a sore
throat, "cat fever," a digestive upset or are just getting over an illness.
Use oxygen according to regulations. If you are a little bit anoxic you will
black out more easily.
Don't expect to build up your resistance tog by blacking out a lot. You'll only
make it worse.
Know your own tolerance and that of your plane. Keep yours up to scratch,
and fly so that you don't black out. If you must black out, do it gently and make it
short. Black-out itself never hurt anybody-it's what you do when you're out that
counts. Or what the Jap will do to you.
Don't exceed the limits of your plane.
Don't make snap pull-outs to avoid black-out. Your plane won't fly without
wings, and you can't judge the amount of g you pull in a snap maneuver by your
symptoms.
When you're flying on instruments, and think you're in a straight dive, and pull
back, THINK QUICKLY b~fore the g's make you woozy-are you in a tight spiral?
Look at your turn indicator. Think first of t:1ns.
29
 Don't fly on an empty stomach. A full stomach will raise your tolerance to g.
The Germans make Stuka pilots eat before they fly, and it isn't because they want to
use up chow.
~ tilting seat has been tried in an attempt to put the pilot in a semireclining
position. But it's hard to fly a plane while you are leaning back.
The Navy is experimenting with a pressure suit, which increases tolerance tog
considerably.
REMEMBER: Anything which will lessen congestion in the lower half of the body
will increase your tolerance to g.
Anything which will improve your physical condition will increase your tolerance
tog.
Don't be afraid of g. Know how to deal with it. lj you treat it right it won't
hurt you.

Watch out for negative g. Look out especially for a little negative followed by
positive g. It will black you out more quickly. Be careful of your pushovers, and
don't stay on your back too long. · If you can, take the advice of one experienced flyer: "A good pilot never
Don't ever pull enough g to make yourself unconscious. blacks out."
Position and g:
A crouching position will increase your tolerance by about 2 g. The closer you
are to horizontal the more g you can take. When you lean forward, your belly mus-
cles also tighten, and there is less chance for blood to pool in your abdomen. But
the crouch puts a lot of strain on your lower back. (Don't use it if you have ever
strained your back.)
A lower seat will increase your tolerance a little, because it brings your legs closer
to the horizontal.

UNDERSTAND THE BALANCE

Extensions on the rudder pedals will raise your tolerance a little, because they BETWEE~ "g's,° TIME, YOU, AND THE PLANE!
make you bring your knees up. However, some pilots consider them uncomfortable.
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NAVAER 00,SOQ-12
OPNAV 33-3

If. S. GOVERNM E !iT P R INTING OFFICE : 1944

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