Pee pressure at 30,000 feet: why tactical dehydration threatens fighter pilots
August 29, 2025
It is one of the most uncomfortable truths in military aviation-one so rarely spoken that it has become almost invisible in mission planning. Pilots go to extraordinary lengths to not relieve themselves during flight. The result is pilot dehydration. And it’s putting lives at risk.
Now, three seasoned military aviators, each with decades of combat and operational experience, have come together to change that.
In exclusive interviews with Aerospace Global News, Lt. Col. Lisa Christensen (USAF, Ret.), Lt. Cmdr. Tara Palmer (USNR), and Lt. Cmdr. Taylor Burton (USN, Ret.) spoke candidly about a subject that’s long been taboo in aviation culture: bladder relief in the cockpit.
The trio has recently joined Omni Defence Technologies as advisors and trainers for SKYDRATE, the first automated, hands-free in-flight bladder relief system approved as “Safe to Fly” by both the US Air Force and Navy.
But the story here isn’t just the tech or the appointments. It’s the systemic issue they’re helping to solve: a human performance crisis hiding in plain sight.
Fighter pilots speak out: “You plan for fuel. You plan for weather. You don’t plan for hydration”
Lt. Cmdr. Taylor Burton knows what it means to push a human body to its limit. With over 26 years of service in the US Navy, the former MH-60 Sierra pilot has served in Bahrain, Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond. Later, as a naval aerospace physiologist and instructor, he saw the physiological costs of even minor dehydration.
“In the old days, when you’re planning a mission, you think about fuel, weather, airframe readiness and crew status,” he said. “But your planning for hydration was not as big of a priority, and this came at a performance cost.”
The cost of pilot dehydration can be fatal
“If you have a 3% loss of water intake in your body, your Gs tolerance and your blood pressure can drop almost 40%,” Burton explained. “My normal G-tolerance is around six, but with that kind of dehydration, I’d pass out at three. When you’re in an F-18 and that happens, you either wake up before you hit the ground or you don’t.”
He added, “Dehydration slows your balance system, blurs vision, and impacts your ability to adapt to G-forces. During 12-hour missions in the summer heat over Iraq, I’d drink ten Gatorades plus water and still not pee once. My urine was dark brown. I felt like I had the flu the next day. It got so bad we had to change policy to give crews multiple days off to recover.”
Flying dehydrated: “The culture doesn’t want to talk about it”
Lt. Cmdr. Tara Palmer, a 14-year veteran of the US Navy and electronic warfare officer in the EA-18G Growler, has vivid memories of flying dehydrated and the toll it took on her mind and body.
”For 12 years of my military career, I had no way of relieving my bladder in the cockpit,” she recalled. “I remember combat flights in 2014 and 2015 over Iraq and Syria six to eight hours long. I’m confident I did damage to my bladder. I had brain fog, fatigue, night vision issues, constant headaches. I felt irritated all the time.”
Yet, no one talked about it. “Tactical dehydration is completely normalised in military aviation for both men and women,” Palmer said. “There’s little appetite to talk about the basic human need of urination in the cockpit. Even when systems like SKYDRATE exist, they’re often only given to pilots who ask. But in a culture where no one talks about the problem, most don’t ask.”
When she finally received a SKYDRATE unit late in her flying career, the difference was immediate. “I flew hydrated for the first time in over a decade,” she said. “And I was shocked. My focus was sharper, I felt less fatigued, and I could finally think clearly from takeoff to landing.”
Still, it wasn’t easy at first. “Even when you need to pee badly, your brain has spent a lifetime telling you not to ’go’ in your flight gear. It’s a mental block,” Palmer said. “That’s why at Omni, we now have both male and female trainers to help aircrew overcome that psychological barrier. After a few uses, the brain adapts. And honestly? The engineering is so good, I take as much pride in using a SKYDRATE as I do flying an 80-million-dollar jet.”
The stigma causing fighter pilot dehydration: “We train like we fight, but we don’t fly like we pee”
¨For Lt. Col. Lisa Christensen, who spent 20 years in the US Air Force flying missions into Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond, the lack of in-flight bladder relief was never just an inconvenience it was a pilot training failure.
“Pilots, both male and female, have been tactically dehydrating and holding it on shorter sorties for so long that they ignore the health and performance consequences,” she said. “They’re not prepared for the demands of longer missions or ocean crossings, where bladder relief becomes critical.”
In the aircraft she flew, especially the C-17 Globemaster and later the C-37 used for Special Air Missions, a working lavatory was mandatory. “Because bladder relief isn’t optional. It’s a biological necessity,” she explained.
And yet, in fighter and helicopter training, relief is often not even discussed. “We talk about ‘train like we fight,’ but that has to include how we hydrate and relieve ourselves,” Christensen said. “If SKYDRATE becomes standard in early pilot training alongside helmets and G-suits, it would build the right habits from day one.”
Why pilot hydration is essential: “The human operator is the most important system onboard.”
Now working directly with Omni Defense Technologies, all three veterans are helping reshape the conversation around human performance in the cockpit. And they’re seeing rapid change.
”Once squadrons realised they could stay hydrated and still focus on flying, the demand skyrocketed,” said Burton. “Before deployments, whole units were coming to me saying, ‘We all want SKYDRATE and we want to be trained on it.’ That tells you how fast attitudes shift when the right tool exists.”
Palmer agrees. “Culturally, we need to talk openly about bladder relief. It’s not shameful, it’s human. And it should no longer be acceptable for even one-hour training flights to encourage dehydration.”
What’s needed now, they argue, is for military leadership to embed hydration and relief systems into mission planning, risk assessment, and crew readiness protocols.
As Burton put it: “It shouldn’t be an afterthought. Crew readiness is mission readiness.”
How SKYDRATE works: technology in the service of humanity
The SKYDRATE system is a fully automated, hands-free bladder relief device designed for use in high-performance aircraft. It integrates discreetly into a pilot’s flight gear, allowing them to urinate mid-flight without unstrapping or removing equipment, thereby eliminating the need for “piddle packs” or risky cockpit manoeuvres.
Using advanced sensors and a small control unit, SKYDRATE detects when relief is needed and safely channels waste into a secure collection unit. Engineered with comfort, hygiene, and reliability in mind, it’s the only in-flight bladder relief system rated “Safe to Fly” by both the US Air Force and Navy.
SKYDRATE is certified for use on all fixed-wing fighters, bombers, transport, surveillance, and rotor-wing aircraft used by the US military and its strategic partners.
Omni Defense Technologies, led by founder Mark Harvie, is quietly pioneering what could become a transformative era in flight physiology. “We are excited about the addition of Tara, Taylor, and Lisa to the Omni Defense team,” Harvie said. “They’ve been there. They’ve flown the missions. And they understand how critical SKYDRATE is for safety and performance.”
Their role isn’t just about selling a product; it’s about shifting a mindset.
Pilot bladder relief: from taboo to tactical standard
In speaking to Aerospace Global News, these three advisors aren’t just sharing war stories; they’re also sharing valuable insights. They’re breaking the silence on an issue that has claimed too many silent casualties, through fatigue, illness, reduced cognitive function, and yes, even accidents.
“We’ve accepted for too long that ‘holding it’ is just part of the job,” Christensen said. “But we wouldn’t ask pilots to fly without oxygen, so why are we asking them to fly without bladder relief?”
Burton added: “The next time we plan a sortie, I hope hydration and human performance are treated as mission-critical, not secondary.”
Because when the cost of pilot dehydration is unconsciousness at 30,000 feet, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
