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Heat Stress Effects of a Navy/USMC vs. Army Aviator Ensemble in a UH-6O Helicopter Simulator
Heat Stress Effects of a Navy/USMC vs Army Aviator Ensemble in a UH6O Helicopter Simulator Author:Matthew J. Reardon, Lawrence Katz, E. B. Fraser, Patricia LeDuc, Pooria Morovati This is a ARMY AEROMEDICAL RESEARCH LAB FORT RUCKER AL report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A182143. The abstract prov... more »ided by the Pentagon follows: This aviator heat stress study used a between test subjects design with one environmental condition (hot) and two current (U.S. Navy/U.S. Marine Corps vs. U.S. Army) rotary wing MOPP4 ensembles encumbered with additional ballistic protective and overwater survival components. Four U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) aviators (2 UH-60 crews) were tested in the hot condition and their physiological, subjective, and flight performance responses compared to those of 14 Army aviators (9 crews) who tested in the same condition in a previous related study. The environmental condition consisted of 100 deg F (dry bulb) and 20 percent relative humidity (RH) in an environmental chamber where test subjects walked on a treadmill for 20 minutes to simulate preflight outdoor activities, and 100 deg F and 50 percent RH (90 deg F wet bulb globe temperature WBGT) in the UH-60 simulator. Every 30 minutes the right seat pilot encountered instrument meteorological conditions and ascended to 2000 feet to perform a 10 minute set of standard maneuvers. These maneuvers included straight and level (SL), right standard rate turn (RSRT), left climbing turn (LCT), and left descending turn (LDT). After each iteration of the set of standard maneuvers, the pilot returned to nap of the earth (NOE) and contour flight between control points. The right seat pilot also performed up to four 1 minute hovers (HOVs) and hover turns (HOVTs) in the 2 hour sortie and three in the second 2 hour sortie.« less