The difficulties of relieving one’s self while simultaneously piloting an advanced, supersonic combat aircraft are definitely real and nontrivial. Even when in command of some of the most advanced and lethal flying machines known to humankind, we’re still humankind, and that means we need to void bladders and bowels pretty regularly. We even had an incredible story on the first day this site went live about just such an event.
That story, while about what polite society euphemizes as “number two,” also made mention of “piddle packs,” special bags designed to be peed in, which trap the urine and turn it into a sort of gel. They work, but they’re a pretty crude, low-tech solution, perhaps unworthy of both pilot and machine. Surely, we can do better, right?
That’s why I was excited to learn of an advanced new urine management system for fighter pilots: the Advanced Inflight Universal Relief System, or AIRUS.
Being able to pee while flying has pretty significant implications; after all, one of the first things one sees on the AIRUS site is the bold statement that “Tactical Dehydration Affects Lethality.” It’s a little counterintuitive to think that peeing – streaming liquid out of your body – helps with dehydration, but it does. That’s because if you can’t pee, you can’t drink! And if you can’t drink, you get dehydrated, and then what happens? That’s right: you get less lethal.
I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that when it comes to air combat, one pisses their way to victory.
I think you should watch this slickly-produced promo video for this in-flight peeing system now, if you don’t mind:
Damn, that’s peeing, people. This is the dripping edge of modern urine-management systems and sure seems to be a game-changer when it comes to bladder-voiding while flying a plane.
The whole thing looks like some sort of expensive audio equipment or something like that. If you told me this was a new sort of special noise-filtering amplifier system from Bang & Olufsen, I’d believe you without question. Maybe even after I saw you pee into it, because we have the sort of relationship that allows for that level of intimacy.
The AIRUS system consists of these five primary components:
The cups, which interface directly with your urine-emitting parts, whether you have male or female equipment, a controller, a pump, and a stylish collection bag.
The cups are interesting, because they come in multiple sizes, and how these sizes are named says more about gender-specific human cultural associations with genitals than countless books on the subject.
For example, here are the sizes for the women’s cups:
Okay, those seem pretty understandable; I’m not sure of the significance of “S” but this feels easily understandable and rational. Now look at how men’s sizes are named:
Look at that: the two options are XL and Magnum. This is because, in many ways, men are ridiculous beings who can not bring themselves to requesting a size that even sounds like it may be the smaller one, even if asking for the larger size means that they’ll end up leaking piping-hot urine all over their crotches.
Dear lord, we’re absurd beings.
Anyway, the system, despite looking so classy and premium, is mostly disposable components, eliminating the need for cleaning. The brain of the system, the controller, is the only non-disposable part (and rechargeable via USB-C), with the pump (up to 3.4 liters per minute), collection bag (it can hold 1800ml normally and 2200 in emergencies – that’s more than a 2-liter soda bottle!) , and cup all being disposable.
The quotes from pilots about this peeing system seem pretty glowing:
“The AIRUS IBRS is game changing technology. Especially with the large QRB harness in the F-35, it’s extremely difficult to go to the bathroom in the aircraft without this product. This system made that problem completely vanish and I can’t wait to be able to use it again.”
(F35 Pilot)
and
“This is a game-changer for long-duration missions. I would not hesitate to use AIRUS on a real-world sortie.”
(F-35A Pilot)
A game-changer!
“First time in 15 years of Air Force flying that I could pee in the aircraft. I’m a prime example of tactical dehydration and want immediately so I can continue flying safely and hydrating.”
– F-16 Pilot
It allowed that pilot to pee in their plane for the first time!
Clearly, we’re in a golden age of in-flight urinating, and I couldn’t be more delighted.
These systems aren’t cheap, unsurprisingly: the starter kit for men is is $2.685.34, and for women it’s about three times as much at $6,458.10. Being a woman is more expensive, as usual, I’m sorry to note.
If the AIRUS company has a test unit I can try on a road trip, I’d happily volunteer to put it through its paces! I’m a skilled, lifelong urinator and feel like this should be available to drivers as well as pilots.
And, um, Magnum, of course. No need to check.
Men are riDICKulous.
They’re not going to sell a single “XL” Cup pack.
Sizing like movie popcorn.
Our taxpayer dollars at work.
As someone who dated a linguistics master’s student, we never got around to discussing why to poop is to defecate, but to pee was not deurinate.
We had better things to do.
That video could easily be mistaken for an ad for sex toys.
This is great. I’m going to get one for use while gaming.
“The difficulties of relieving one’s self while simultaneously piloting an advanced, supersonic combat aircraft are definitely real and nontrivial. Even when in command of some of the most advanced and lethal flying machines known to humankind, we’re still humankind, and that means we need to void bladders and bowels pretty regularly.”
Which is why being a drone pilot is so awesome. Need to pee? Hungry? Take a walk? Simply bored? Rather be watching cat videos? Just pass the controls to another pilot somewhere, anywhere else in the world and go do your business for a longer as you want, even in the comfort of your own home.
Hmmm. I wonder if I need Huge or Gigantic. Or, wait, is Enormous the one for me? You know what, I’ll just take Colossal.
Thought truck drivers would be all over this until I saw the price. No freight in the world is expensive enough to justify 6 grand on a glorified piss bottle
Not sure if by “lethality” they mean the ability of the pilot to kill others or the danger of the pilot dying.
I’d be that a hole that would make guys feel bad when I point out I am using an xl for my clearly medium small unit.
Watch out… that’ll get you a unique callsign 😉
> It allowed that pilot to pee in their plane for the first time!
… Officially.
It seems like a good thing that female parts get more options?
What’s the reasoning behind the price discrepancy?
It’s the “starter kit “, it probably includes all the cup sizes so you can figure out which one you need.
$4000 worth of cups though?
Textured grip!
For the love of god, if you’re urinating for 22 minutes continuously you need to land the plane and find a doctor, stat.
I think it’s more that the battery lasts 22 minutes, allowing for multiple times peeing? Maybe? Or if you’re in the middle of a fight, set and forget sort of thing?
Ever have a catheter inserted? Men will scream for the smallest size available in a heartbeat. I offered bribes.
Even Liberator Medical’s polished eyelet catheter?
Ever had prostate cancer? You don’t even want to know.
Never had a catheter, but I did once have to have a cystoscopy, which is where they use a small camera to look inside your bladder. I’ll leave it to you to guess how they get the camera in there.
Yeah, I bet you just crossed your legs when you worked it out 😉
I’ve had surgery for kidney stones several times. After the surgery, they usually leave a stent inside to help keep stuff from blocking you up inside. It’s a tube about 1/4 inch OD with one end coiled in the kidney and the other in your bladder. After a couple of weeks, the stent comes out. According to my doc the procedure to remove it is “A noninvasive procedure where we insert a Cystoscope into the bladder through the penis, inflate the bladder with sterile saline, and then pull out the tubing.”
I told the doctor that he has a funny definition of “non-invasive”.
That said, props to the half of the population with female parts that go through “non-invasive” pap smears once a year.
Been there, screamed that.
And my eyes watered.
Trump picked the names. That’s why.
I wonder how this compares to NASCAR driving suits. You know they aren’t stopping to pee. But as for on the cusp of urine processing I think NASA has a suit that processes pee into potable water. Now that is hydration/dehydration science.
Excuse me due you have any Grey Pee On?
NASCAR onesies are quilted for absorbancy, flight onesies are not
Didnt know the Fremen had left the desert for the heavens.
The NASA system has a host of problems with mineralization of the RO membranes. On the ISS, they actually run it well below the recycling efficiency they advertise, according to the astronauts I’ve spoken to. In actual practice they’re recycling ~70% of the water.
FYI space toilet questions are always a hit during the Q&A.
“First time in 15 years of Air Force flying that I could pee in the aircraft.” Nah, you could always pee in the aircraft…once. Now you can pee in the aircraft and be allowed to fly it again.
The big advantage of Air Force flying vs. the other services is that lots of AF birds have lavatories, galleys, and even beds. And as my ex-C-5 driver uncle always said, the biggest advantage of flying Fat Fred was they never sent the world’s biggest target anywhere it was likely to get shot at.
Anybody who’s spent time around fighter jocks and jills know they relish associations with fighter aces and planes of yore. Realizing this, I would have gone the nostalgia route in naming the system and called it the Pee 51.
Brilliant!
*checks price*
Sorry fellow 24 Hours of Lemons racer, you still have to sit in my piss.
as is tradition
Did they really need to name the women’s apparatus after bra sizes?
Yes, we are.
I mean, that’s a logical system, first or second after numbering. No matter what, they were going to get connotations from something.
Think about it women know cup sizes they could pick out what they need easier
When I’m playing Maverick, I definitely need the Magnum. But what happens when I need to drop bombs? Is there in-flight fecaltainment system for that?
Diapers
Yes it’s called the Goose.
Depends.
Is it just me or has “lethality” become a buzzword recently? It came up during the presidential campaign (on both sides) and now comes up in military budget conversations. I feel like the word has replaced “effective” in the discourse.
Not just you, though when it comes to defense sector products it seems like everything has to make you more lethal. If there were a military specific Preparation H it would definitely mention improved lethality in the advertising.
Preparations A through G were ineffective…
It was just a few short years ago I learned the H stood for hemorrhoids.
This surprises me. What else could it mean?
When you’re young and have no concept of or experience with hemorrhoids (at least the literal kind), you’re familiar with various lettered vehicles and whatnot (Model T, Saturn V, Mercedes S-class, P-51, F-100, etc) and this stuff appears in TV commercials with an H designation, you just sort of accept it and move on with life.
Years later, it’s “oh, duh” when the lightbulb finally turns on.
Preparation H for your Hummer.
I’m getting sort of a mixed metaphor vibe here. Don’t know that I’d ever considered “Preparation H” and “hummer” in the same context. And now that I have, it’s not good.
For the record, still don’t know about K and Y.
I was trying to come up with a joke to include the word hummerhoid, but failed.
Kentucky Jelly?
It isn’t just you. The white supremacist drunk occupying the office of the Secretary of Defense has made lethality a key platform of his tenure. Obviously wars involve killing people, but this explicit focus is just blatant pandering to the lowest common denominator of knuckle draggers.
I’ve heard it as long as I’ve been in (15 years now). It’s largely a buzzword among operators (pilots, navigators, infantry, etc, aka “tip of the spear”) but it’s basically a synonym for “effectiveness.”
I questioned the efficacy of those motor-home exhaust converters, but a dang jet engine with an afterburner, that should work.
That’s what I was thinking. No need for a collection bag, just run a hose to the engine.
So it’s a piss vacuum? Their promotional material does a fairly shit job of telling us that.
They need it to sound cool and vague so we don’t realize our taxes are paying for piss systems that cost more than a winter beater
Or most of the cars owned by the autopian’s lovely writers, honestly
I mean, if an F-35 is $80M and this helps your pilot with $10M of training hydrate for 3% better thinking and 1% better lethality, it’s worth it to drop five grand on this. Personally I know I take a pretty big hit to thinking when I’m dehydrated, though I’m not sure how much it works for pilots.
It also helps them not ruin their however million dollar helmet and suits. I just think the six grand bag of piss is funny
One would think they’d get a military service discount.
When it comes to selling things for the government, the “military discount” means adding 200%.
No waste, fraud, or abuse to be found here. Well… Maybe some waste.
What’s shitty is that it probably costs the company less than $80 to make it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the pump is based on (or even sourced from) an aquarium pump. That’s all this is, a battery powered aquarium pump.
I wouldn’t call it a shit job, perhaps a piss poor job…