#pilotcore

So seeing this I had a thought:

Thinking of Sampson Lee's neat keyboard in Cowboy Bebop the Movie, I tried threading an N52 Speedpad into a belt assembly to see how it might look and feel to type on with chording and yeah this is actually pretty great actually?

This absoloutely feels like something a mecha pilot would wear, that would allow for robust access in the field, or make the pilot suit part of the interface of the robot to do all the startup checklists on before using the HOSAS inceptor grips.

Note the same throughhole in the N52 which lets me thread it into a belt also lets you put your fingers in, akin to gripping a joystick.

I think with some refinement you could fit an analogue trigger and a bumper in here, and the thumb-cluster could be expanded slightly to include some other inputs.

Its begging for a trackball or an analogue stick in truth.

Genuinely surprised by how comfortable this is from a Human Factors Engineering standpoint???? Like, "putting your hands in your pockets" level comfortable, and it would be even better with a wrist-loop or something.

It beats the pants off of any cyberdeck esque project I've ever tried in terms of usability so I think this is something which needs to be iterated upon actually???

It hangs very naturally and you can vary the angle by adjusting it against the rubbedr of the quick-release strap. My one complaint is the base is designed for a desk and I think it could stand to be curved to better conform to the hip or leg which I think could cut the total size down considerably.

Even sat in a chair this feels surprisingly comfortable, with my only complaint being that its conflicting with the strap of my repurposed shoulder-bag, which is its own entirely different issue and that the default switches kind of suck.

The interior has a ton of room so you could absoloutely squeeze a decent battery and a Rasberry Pi in this thing, or use it as a pure input device that doubles as a USB hub/storage (SD card) and uses the spare room to charge a phone.

Two of these would give you a pretty bonkers battery life if you had one on either hip.

I think with ultra low profiles, a curved form, a slightly more robust strapping mechanism and a means to plug this into a smartphone as the middle computer (with something like a pair of smart-glasses as the display) you could have really really robust wearable computer and if you add a second one on the other hip, you've solved the wpm problem.

btw I typed this entire post on it, only lifting my hands off to use my trackball.

So ultimately this is down to the purpose of your flight suit:

If your goal is to go undetected...

if your machine lands somewhere unexpected because you're a warfighter or an infiltrator you want british greens (left) if you're in milder climates like europe and darker green if you're in hotter/sweatier climates like the Americas, Asia or close to the equator.

2. If you expect to go down in an urban settlement or, you want gray.

If your goal is to be rescued after you go down (eg, you're civilian), you want bright colors

1. with oranges and reds (the least common colors in nature) being hyper-desirable, sometimes with hi-vis panelling.

2. or red: This is the same practice used by those who are in hostile spaces such as snow-drifts, often looking for people who are lost with red marking those who are searching or rescuing (akin to the red cross coloration associated with medicine).

Note the radar reflector (middle): this is often worn by civilian pilots as well as whose who would be rescued hiking, or searching for lost hikers, and is an ideal retrieval tool.

3. It is likewise, why most space flight-suits are bright orange (space shuttle, fighter & SR71 suits respectively.

4. There is then the SR71 flight suit, which is white and yellow, with under-portions of green. Its yellow to be highly visible, but the material is a NASA white, so the two combined make a golden yellow.

The point of the color is to signify something to others:

If you can mix the flight-suit with the right kind of vest and harness, it might be an idea to mix and match because you'll come to really satisfying combinations (as the white, brown, yellow and green does on the SR71 suit).

Climbing harnesses, support harnesses, vests, its your call. Usually its easiest to get accessories in dark or muted colors however.

There are also fixed color combinations, either by mixing different panels of the same fabric, or by using unusual colors (generally for test-teams, and for demonstration teams, such as the herritage squadrons, or the blue angels)

Look into the CWU series from Dupont to see who uses which.

So now we've gone from a question of which color, to which thing you want to communicate to others, since all of fashion is fashioned to signal and signify something to others.

Sorry that I didn't pick a color out for you, but I hope helps.

Do you need to be seen and rescue (red) or get rescued (orange), do you war-fight (green), do you warfight undetected (dark gray), or do you perform overwatch high above on the freezing edge of space?

Personally I'd go for dark green as a combatant, or dark gray but depending on the drape you get from the fabric you may want to look into other colors.

Likewise, if you want to stop being seen as a ghostbuster, you need to find patches which represent your values and adopt them in ways which break up the suit's purpose.

A flight-suit without patches or a jacket is often seen as incomplete, since it fundamentally is a jumpsuit until it is paired with a vest or a jacket most of the time.

Scroll down here for a list of patches. Remember that you should be attaching the patches to velcro sheets, and then attaching velcro to your jumpsuit akin to how it is attached standard on military equipment, instead of directly ironing them on unless you're displaying them on a jacket (which is seen as informal, but communicative).

I can 100% see a handler using the folding radio antennae to whip a hound, and without screwing up their fit. How did I learn this?

A shoulder sling-bag can be worn on the hip if you slide the strap through the ladder feed and then use a hairclip to lock it in place -- making room for a whole backpack

You can stow a radio easily without problem (ideal for PTT)

You can stow a fullsize folding antennae with a velcro cross by using the compression of the two over the strap as one would a whip

The folding antennae folds out very quickly and makes a *fantastic* whip or riding crop (hurts like hell! 🖤)

Please ignore my pajamas and the mess, I've been painting lol

Seems like a no-brainer to go with the thirtyninefiftyeight mecha shirt.

alttext:

Fun discovery to add to the crew attire thoughts I had last time, and some other thoughts on crew attire too and I think I've found something that feels super achievable, practical and affordable.

If you own a onepiece thermal onesie with a zipper on the front that's deliberately one size too big, you can fold the legs behind your shoulders and down around your neck and fold it into a scarf that kind of gives it a partisan vibe that's kind of remeniscent of the oxygen mask and forms of a fighter-pilot's jacket?

🎵 Hit play on all three videos for effect.

Looks... Weirdly good, actually?

Throw on a few iron on patches and the right kind of black facial compression garment (kinda like the fireproofing gear racing car drivers wear) and a reflective wetsuit or bodsuit underneath the jacket and you've 1000% absoloutely got an aesthetic for sure.

Would be fucking awesome to achieve that Gunhed Seargent Nim fit or something adjacent.

With very little modification (I haven't done any yet) I think there's an original garment here that would be really nice for sleeping in uncomfortable places with a little bit of padding, especially if you sleep rough with waterproofing it would be really really nice to sleep outdoors in.

If the legs had a zipper down the sides, you could suit in and out of it without having to take the whole thing off. I think with some adjustments and some strategically placed drawstrings and folding buttons and this could also become a backpack at the same time with very little work, actually???

Sorry for awkward pics, I suck at taking photos lol

Y'all got any mecha pilot ish coords or ideas?

🎵 Once upon a time in the west, Ennio Morricone

Two pilots walking across salt flats, knee high with water.

Their machines march through the salt like a perfect mirror which cracks like icing, crunching like thick hungry snow.

Upon the glass; pyramids, stalagmites swelling from the horizon's masterpiece of glass: sprouting from floor-clouds and floor skies alike.

Each like styrofoam bones outward at its base, and ligaments into mineral pile, to both texture and sight.

Each whispered with small delicate branches, crystlaline tree-root mushroom heatsink flow, each beneath the setting sun of the same height as the two marching machines.

Each of these little towers stood respectfully apart from the others.

All but the occasional pair, leant against eachother as if huddled for warmth in the cold.

First pilot asks what they're looking at, coming to a stop.

Second asks what the first knows about the machines they sit within.

Second explains, the machine can taste you.

That its made of micillium and metal crystals, like the beating carapacial heart of a sleeping forest.

It feels, and breathes just like you do.

It dreams, just like you do.

The first pilot pauses.

A long wait hangs.

And then asks again: what they're looking at.

The second explains that the machines won't leave a pilot behind.

The first asks again What they are looking at.

The second does not respond.

Instead, two stand alone upon a mirror of the sky, dotted in this place of pale pines of salt upon glass.

Further out, the horizon.

An endless pink pastel sky on the shore of forever.

Still, more of the peaks, like goosebumps into the Earth now.

Further still, it continues.

And further until it light scatters wax through the endless crowd.

There are so many of them.

How are there so many?

The sun is slowly setting.

And then as they are shadowed by the salt, a whisper.

"They don't want to be lonely, so they wait."

...

Don't give me that crap that its about temperature management. You could wear the minimal-coverage types or use heat-piping active coolant (your requisition officer would be happy to give you them), but no you had to go full hog and wear the full-type.

This is a very sensitive piece of equipment. The bags are designed when connected to the cockpit hose line to inflate and increase the blood pressure around your thighs and calves, pushing blood up through your body during high-G turns. Why are you wearing it outside of the cockpit?

Admittedly, it does result in improved launch times and the deck crew's overall workrate seems to improve (though their breaks during downtime are significantly longer for reasons we haven't figured out) but more investigation is needed before we can sanction this practice for the Pilot's Handbook or the Handler's Guide: "How to Domesticate Your Pilot".

Update: