Backcountry Pilot

[Zzz]

Episode 1. Fire and Cooking / Trapping Game
Episode 2. Surface-to-Air Rescue / Shelter


Back before Thanksgiving my uncle Jim donated some old flying reference books to me, among which was a priceless 1955 training manual from the Department of the Air Force.

This thing is rich with survival goodness. I've kept it next to the throne for the last few weeks, building up my repertoire of survival skills one-by-one with each passing day.

This stuff is good, so I've decided to share. From here on out I'll post a new nugget of Air Force knowledge whenever inspiration strikes, in illustrated comic book format.

Click the images below to see a larger version.


Fire and Cooking

I'll start this out with an old classic that can be found in any survival manual: Techniques for starting fires and cooking food. I really have to hand it to the Air Force-- The manual is comprehensive. Before it delves into anything technical, like starting fires, signaling search planes, or the proper method for climbing vertical rock, it addresses the core issues: Do you have the will to survive?

The rest sounds like quotes from The Edge starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, but it is good stuff. Attitude is everything, and as I just learned, if you become dehydrated enough, your wounds won't bleed until you drink water again. There's a silver lining to everything, and the optimist will prevail.

Let's make some fire.


Now let's cook stuff



All Creatures Great and Small...for dinner

Unless you managed to grab your .22 rifle from the burning remains of your craft as you made your hasty exit, chances are you're going to need to trap your food. Here's a few examples of how the Air Force survival experts recommend you do it.

Small Animals.


Large Animals


Stay tuned. More to come.

[Oregon180 offline]

Gotta love the "Fire Thong." Youch!

[Scolopax offline]

Not quite like the fire thongs that I'm used to?

[Terry offline]

Good info, I will be looking forward to more. The mental picture of you reading on the throne, I could have done with out .

[WWhunter offline]

I have two copies of those manuals I recieved when I was in the AIr Force. Funny thing was one of them was issued with a file inside the manual. Guess they they thought I was going to need it sometime.
I carry one in my flight bag most of the time. Very good manual.
They might be able to be purchase through the AAFES Clothing and Sales if anyone is interested. They usually stock some of the manuals or can order them. Of course you need a military ID to purchase but you guys should have a friend that has one and might be wanting to give you a nice Christmas present.
Keith

[mtv offline]

And, the really useful part of these little instruction booklets, which is lost when they're viewed on-line, is that you can use the pages for tinder to get a good fire going....

MTV

[LowAndSlow offline]

And, the really useful part of these little instruction booklets, which is lost when they're viewed on-line, is that you can use the pages for tinder to get a good fire going....

MTV

But if you're viewing online, you're probably not in dire need of starting a fire.....

[Green Hornet offline]

Zane,
Good stuff!=D> Could I request for the senior visually challenged you make it just a wee bit bigger

[Zzz]

Zane,
Good stuff!=D> Could I request for the senior visually challenged you make it just a wee bit bigger

Did you click the images? They open up into a larger version. Perhaps I'll scan the next round slightly larger.

Remember that if you hover your mouse over the opened large version of the image in Firefox, and the cursor turns to a magnifying glass, click it and it will zoom to full size. Likewise, in Internet Explorer, I think an icon appears over the image that you can click.

[edleg offline]

If you have the ID number (?? forgot the right terminology) of the manuals, they might be available through the US Government Printing Office for a small fee, maybe even for free online.

[Green Hornet offline]

Zane,
Good stuff!=D> Could I request for the senior visually challenged you make it just a wee bit bigger

Did you click the images? They open up into a larger version. Perhaps I'll scan the next round slightly larger.

Remember that if you hover your mouse over the opened large version of the image in Firefox, and the cursor turns to a magnifying glass, click it and it will zoom to full size. Likewise, in Internet Explorer, I think an icon appears over the image that you can click.

Man, that was so easy I am embarrassed
Thanks Bud

[GroundLooper offline]

Good info, I will be looking forward to more. The mental picture of you reading on the throne, I could have done with out .

Especially with a "fire-thong" down around your ankles!

[qmdv offline]

Anybody old enough to remember the cardboard dividers between the layers of shreaded wheat. They had much of the same stuff written on them. All kinds of good campiong info.

Check this politicaly incorect good stuff http://rolandanderson.se/straight_arrow ... s6and7.php

The Airforce just coppied Strait Arrow.
http://rolandanderson.se/straight_arrow ... 6and67.php


Tim

[WWhunter offline]

Injun-uity.....I love it. LOL


The Survival manual from the Army is also good. I think it and the Air Force one are very similar or may be the same. My AF Survival manual is in the plane but I have an Army one laying right here. It is dated March 1986 and has color pictures of piosonous snakes and edible plants, eyc.

It is:Field Manual No. 21-76 (FM 21-76)
On the inside cover it has:
For sale by the Superintedant of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office,Washington D.C. 20402

I'm sure you could do a google search and find it at an Army-Navy Surplus store or maybe even online book dealer. It is a good reference manual.

Keith

[Zzz]

In a side-by-side comparison, it would appear that Straight Arrow is more innovative and resourceful than the Air Force.

The manual I'm pulling these from is AFM 64-3

[tcj offline]

I have tried the "Steak on a stick". It's the best steak you'll ever taste.

Fire camp near Ophir, Alaska

[Benton offline]

Frank Heyl (google his name for bio info) presented a survival tutorial at our EAA chapter's Sept meeting. Frank literally 'wrote the book' for the Army Air Corps back in WW-II (he was ferrying planes from the mid-west, across Alaska to Russia and had a vested interest in learning the stuff) and has consulted on survival since. The write up from that meeting is in our Oct club newsletter, starting on page 4.

http://www.eaa105.org/Newsletter/nl-200810.pdf

If you ever get a chance to hear a presentation by him, do it. He's not as spry as he used to be, but still sharp, with a ton of good info. (We got as much as we could down on the notes, but missed a lot.) And has a million stories and examples, hundreds of corny jokes and a few good ones. Was a great talk. He lives in the Portland area... I think chapter 782 was hoping to set up a meeting with him.

Benton 11dec08

[Zzz]

Well, we're back with another installment of this BCP Mini-Series, scanned from the pages of Air Force Manual 63 in brilliant black-and-white cereal box illustration. This time the topic is makeshift shelters.

First though, let's talk about something that might happen if your flying buddies are resourceful enough to devise a method of extracting you from your incredibly overgrown and unlandable crash site. They've been reading their AFM 63 in the mornings after cup of coffee #1, and happened to recall this method for airman surface-to-air rescue:

Surface-to-Air Rescue

As you can see in the below diagram, all that's required here is: 1) a balloon powerful enough to float a good-sized dynamic rope a hundred feet into the air, 2) a body harness or bosun's chair that won't decapitate you, and 3) a retrieval aircraft of at least 12,500 lbs to rip your body off the surface and into immediate cruise flight dangling from the end of the rope. No problem.

Bungee-pult



Survival Shelters

I'll let these speak for themselves, as not much interpretation is needed. Obviously, different climates and conditions require different shelters both for effectiveness and available materials. Would you rather spend a night in an igloo or a para-teepee?

General Purpose Shelters, for when more entertaining building materials cannot be found:



Moist-Tropical Shelters:


Arctic Col-weather Shelters:



Stay tuned for the next episode: "Ad hoc Celestial Navigation and Other Trigonometric Stuff You Have No Chance of Remembering"

[River rat offline]

I saw that surface to air pickup on discovery chanel the guy on the ground leaves on a hurry!!!

[58Skylane offline]

I saw that surface to air pickup on discovery chanel the guy on the ground leaves on a hurry!!!

That would be a hoot!!