That rubber band aroma
February 17th, 2010 | Aviation Life at Sea | Posted by Phil Ewing
Passengers and crew members in cold-weather immersion suits, apparently fielded by the Navy to punish journalists it doesn't like, disembarked Tuesday from Sin City 11, an MH-60S Seahawk from HSC-22 det 2 // Philip Ewing / Staff
NAVAL STATION MAYPORT, Fla. — I’ve had to deal with only a few dangerous situations in the short time I’ve been covering the military, certainly nothing like what real service members face every day. There was the pilot ladder incident, or the time when the Marine CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter in which I was riding over Anbar province launched flares and made a steep dive because something tripped off the incoming-threat warning, or the rough-seas transfer from the guided-missile submarine Georgia, shipping water down its hatches, to a rolling, pitching tug.
Nothing, however, has been as challenging, tricky or unpleasant as getting into the cold-weather survival suits we had to wear yesterday for the flight from the littoral combat ship Freedom back here to Mayport.
Even though this is sunny Florida, the temperatures have been unseasonably cold, and so according to regulations, everyone in our helicopter was required to wear the cold-weather suits, a thinner, lighter version of the famous “Gumby suits” mariners wear when they abandon ship. You step into the thin, high-visibility orange plastic suit like a standard pair of Navy coveralls, but you discover black booties at the bottom of the pant legs that pinch your toes. You struggle to get your arms through the sleeves and zip it up, but then you realize the zipper goes diagonally across the front — and then you have to struggle back out again because you forgot to put your head through the rubber turtleneck collar.
You jam and pull and twist and yank and grapple to pull thing over your head, which starts tearing out the hair that has inevitably become stuck in it, but you don’t want to force it, because AWS2 (NAC/AW/SW) Jacob Wilamowski, of HSC-22 detachment 2, has asked you very politely to be careful because the suits rip easily. And you think, hey, the last thing this guy needs is me tearing the plastic coveralls from the rubber collar, because then what kind of jerk would I look like, but then you think, if I can’t get my head unstuck from this thing, I’m going to suffocate and die. And you remember that you’re standing in a helo hangar airborne mission zone filled with aviation boatswain’s mates all watching this, no doubt highly amused by the one-man Sturm und Drang of a civilian reporter trying to put on a plastic suit.
Then a few charitable guys help you pull your head through the collar, and you think, if we have to ditch on the way in, I’d rather freeze and drown than try to get this thing off again. All of a sudden the whole world smells like a tire store, or Mylar party balloons, or the aftermath of an epic rubber-band fight. You try to slip your bootie-enclosed feet back into your boots, which no longer fit, and then hurry to slide on the standard Navy horse-collar life vest and the ever-pinchy helicopter cranial, and then waddle out to the bird.
For all that, we had a pleasant, uneventful flight back to Mayport aboard an MH-60S Seahawk, named Sin City 11, and commiserated with the air crew as we attempted to peel off all the cold weather gear.
“I’m tired of wearing ‘em,” said AWSC (NAC/AW/SW) Jeffrey Smith. “They are no fun to wear for five or six hours. I figured we were coming to Florida and we wouldn’t need them, but the water temperature’s been so cold, there’s nothing you can do.”