polish Flight Boots?

[Swmtb]

i thought this was going to be a thread about flight boots from Poland. man, i am dumb.

It was the capitalization of 'Polish' that threw me off.

 

[phrogpilot73]

In the fleet (at least my squadron) you will see people generally put a coat of polish on their boots maybe once every week or two weeks. Or, if they have to walk into the CO/XO's office, or if a VIP is on deck. When you go on deployment (boat deployment, not dirt det in the sandbox), you'll generally see less polishing. It interrupts your sleep patterns to polish your boots. I think I threw polish on my boots once in 7 months, and that was only to talk to the MEU CO after completing the HAC syllabus.

 

[HAL Pilot]

If your boots catch fire, you have a hell of a lot more to worry about than whether or not they have a little wax on them.

I saw an emergency pull forward and landing on the USS Midway when a F-4 RIO had his boot catch fire. Seems there were rows of circuit breakers at feet level in the back cockpit of a the F-4. This one had some electrical arcing and between the polish, oil, jet fuel and everything else soaked into this RIO's boot, he had a pretty good flame going. Funny site watching him bail out of the cockpit after the trap - looked like one of those old cartoons where they stick matches between the toes.

Polish does burn. We used to light it on fire to melt it into the leather when I was in the Army. Got a really good base coating this way and a great shine.

In my squadrons, the only time we polished our flight boots was when the Commodore or a VIP flew with us. Than it was just a black coating rather than a shine.

 

[petescheu]

Probably should be posted under the "Urban Legends" thread, but that whole thing about polish being a fire hazard is nothing but BS.

Def not true... there was a kid my 2/C year I think it was that almost burned down 4th wing of Bancroft because he lit is can of shoe polish on fire after trying to soften it with a lighter. At least the fire dept got to do something for once...

 

[gaijin6423]

Def not true... there was a kid my 2/C year I think it was that almost burned down 4th wing of Bancroft because he lit is can of shoe polish on fire after trying to soften it with a lighter. At least the fire dept got to do something for once...

Sure, if you light the CAN on fire. But the amount of polish on a boot will not catch fire unless you mix it with other flammable juice. ...Which there is plenty of lying around, as most of us know. I had one of my LCpls pull this line on me when I was stationed in Japan, and I made him try to light his boots on fire after he polished them up. It took lots of rubbing alcohol and an open flame (from a Zippo) to actually get them to ignite. A soldering iron, various spark-inducing devices, and a hot air gun all failed to get the boots going. Not exactly a very scientific experiment, but oh well. It did get me quite the repuation around the AVI compound, though:

"Hey [LCpl Backtalk], what happened to your boots, man?"
"I mouthed-off to Cpl [me], and he made me light them on fire."
"No sh!t?"
"No sh!t, man."

I got a ROYAL counseling session from the Master Guns, though. He chewed me out for about an hour, threatened to NJP me, and then invited me to a barbecue. I was off to become an Officer about a month later...

 

[phrogdriver]

Sure, if you light the CAN on fire. But the amount of polish on a boot will not catch fire unless you mix it with other flammable juice. ...Which there is plenty of lying around, as most of us know. I had one of my LCpls pull this line on me when I was stationed in Japan, and I made him try to light his boots on fire after he polished them up. .

Sounds as if you might have a job on "Mythbusters."

 

[ChuckMK23]

Polish flight boots?

 

[gaijin6423]

Sounds as if you might have a job on "Mythbusters."

Quite possible... But I'm NOT growing one of those mustaches.

 

[Fly Navy]

Myth Busters.... fun show, but they get it wrong sometimes.

 

[Pags]

Yeah, mythbusters definetely uses some bad science.

But, on the topic of the post, polish them boots. I remember being in API and there was a lot of bad gouge floating around about how you aren't supposed to polish the boots, but ignore that crap, the regs say you're supposed to polish em.

And I've known guys who have been called out by higher-ups for having boots that look like they were polished with a belt sander.

 

[Pags]

...especially if you're in API :icon_wink

 

[A4sForever]

We didn't shine them in the Fleet .... too much trouble and we wanted to look "salty". We spit-shined them when flying Adversary because we wanted to look "cool" and give the impression in the brief (especially with the Air Force) that nothing that was going to come to pass in the upcoming engagements was really worth sweating.

..... As in, "I'm wearing my spit-shined "inspection dress boots" to fly against you as I don't think I'll mess them up too much....."