Flight Suit Sizes for Women

This report documents the development of a minimal set of flight suit sizes specifically for females. The project goal is to improve flight suit accommodation for females across all services. Researchers used fit test results of existing prototypes to establish the relationship between anthropometry and fit for women, and expressed the proper proportioning as the degree of change from the prototypes. The prototypes were the exiting flight suit sizes proportioned for men. Analysis included fit test data of the Modified Enhanced Air Force Flight Suit MEAFFS collected independently by the Air Force and Navy. The results indicate that female sizes should have narrower shoulders, smaller necks and waists, shorter upper torsos, and shorter legs. Researchers examined neighboring size data from the Air Force fit test and differences between male and female anthropometry to determine how much change was needed to generate a base female size. Four more female sizes are recommended two larger than the base size and two smaller than the base size. These five sizes should be available in two lengths for a total of ten female proportioned sizes. The estimated grade for existing sizes can be applied to the female base size to generate these sizes.