New Air Force flight suit in development - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

New Air Force flight suit in development

Pilots and aircrew members, get ready: You’re getting a new flight suit.

Don’t toss out the old green one just yet, though, because its replacement is a long way off, according to Carl Medeiros, who’s overseeing the uniform project at Air Force Material Command’s Human Systems Division.

The Air Force doesn’t know what the flight suit that it has dubbed the “Integrated Aircrew Ensemble” will look like — style or color — or when it will be delivered.

A couple of things are sure: There will be at least three styles — fighter/bomber, helicopter and transport. And the only deadline right now is one for testing, set to begin in 2013.

TIAX LLC of Lexington, Mass., which bills itself as a technology processing and commercialization company, is getting $99.4 million over seven years to research, develop and manufacture the flight suit. The Air Force awarded the contract Nov. 4, ending a nearly three-year bidding process.

In information provided to prospective bidders, the Air Force stipulated the ensemble — the flight suit and the protective gear with it — must protect airmen from flames, all kinds of weather, chemical attacks or radiation, and high gravity that can cause aircrew members to black out.

Medeiros, though, declined to cite specific performance standards, such as temperature extremes or G-forces.

A top TIAX official, too, declined to talk about the ensemble; Ron Spangler, director of government business development, told Air Force Times any comment would be inappropriate since the contract could still be contested.

The Air Force does know it wants the flight suit and protective gear to be designed as a unit, not as separates. Instead of putting on a dry suit to prevent hypothermia in cold water or layers of long underwear to keep warm, the flight suit and protection gear will fit together — coordinated.

“We’re trying to integrate everything as much a possible,” Medeiros said.

Today, about 30,000 airmen — from pilots and airborne linguists to loadmasters and boom operators — are qualified to wear the flight suit, and they will be qualified to put on the new one, too.

As for the old green one, you need to hang on to it no matter how long it takes to get the new one. You’ll probably be wearing it for nonflying duties.

The ensemble “will not replace the flight suit aircrew members wear when they are not flying; today’s flight suit will continue to have a role,” division spokesman Brad Jessmer said.