The development of personal conditioning in military aviation

Abstract

This paper describes the development of personal conditioning systems in UK military aviation from the air-ventilated suit systems in the Second World War to the modern liquid-cooled garments supplied by thermoelectric cooling devices. It describes the decreasing need for personal cooling brought about by the reduction in environmental operating temperatures as the RAF became based almost entirely in Europe. It goes on to describe how this reduction in thermal stress from environmental sources has been more than offset by increasing stresses attributable to aircraft performance, avionic equipment and complicated air-crew clothing assemblies.

Keywords:

• Thermal stress
• Personal conditioning