I attended a talk by Chuck Cook, who survived a crash landing in a T-28 in 2018. He was wearing a nomex suit with shorts, T-shirt and leather lace up low-top shoes. He did not have nomex gloves. He did not have a nomex balaclava, only a fighter helmet.

He brought his nomex suit with him to the talk. It looked largely intact, except where they cut it away from his body.

The only parts of him that did not have severe 2nd degree and 3rd degree burns were the parts that had clothing underneath. He lost multiple fingers and toes, and his face was basically burned off. He has vision today only because the doctors tried an experimental placental stem cell treatment.

Takeaway: nomex only works if it’s part of a total system that includes long sleeve shirt, long pants, nomex gloves, nomex socks, nomex boots, and a nomex balaclava. I doubt that any glider pilot would want all that gear on unless they were going above 8000-10,000 feet.

Having worn nomex for civil air patrol flights, I can attest that it doesn’t breath and this makes it hot in the summertime.

J M

link to Chuck’s story:
https://midwestflyer.com/?p=12924