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Randall F. White and George J. Scott were awarded a patent in 1961 for this Full Pressure Flight Suit. The patent was assigned to the Secretary of the Navy.

One of the well-known hazards in high altitude aircraft and space flights is the rapid reduction of pressure on the body surface of the occupants with increasing altitude.

A partial solution to this problem has been the development of pressurized cabins and cockpits. However, since pressure can be lost by accidental blowout or puncturing of the cabin, or should the pilot be forced to bail out, the need for individual pressure flight suit protection has been long recognized. . .

The present invention comprises a suit of flexible material having a plurality of spaced nonconvoluted tubular sections joined by a plurality of convoluted tubular sections at the principal joints of the occupant, such as the shoulders, elbows, waist, and knees. Each of the smaller diameter folds of the convoluted sections has a nylon cord secured around the periphery thereof to restrain any ballooning effect of the section when the suit is subjected to internal pressure.

Each convoluted section has a pair of oppositely disposed, longitudinal tubes through which are threaded a corresponding flexible tape or the like. One end of each tape is anchored to the suit, the opposite end extending freely beyond the tube for attachment to a respective anchor tie means on the suit whereby the length of the respective convoluted section can be varied according to the size of the user. In the shoulder, a similar pair of tubes are connected together at one end by a rigid or semi-rigid U-shaped tube. A continuous tape or the like extends through the connected tubes, and the adjacent ends of the tape are attached at the neck portion of the suit. Although the total length of the tape is fixed, the tape is freely slideable through the tubes to afford universal adjustability of the shoulder in perpendicular planes. That is, when one leg of the tape is lengthened by a particular shoulder movement, the other leg is correspondingly shortened to permit the desired shoulder
movement.

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