ALIHISGREAT wrote:is there anyreason why the governement wouldn't just give the pilots a pistol or a PDW like the H&K MP7A1 or the B&T MP9?
It depends - if a pilot is surrounded by enemy forces, then even a M60 isn't go to keep him protected. Pilot's personal weapons are usually more to enable to him to survive by hunting wildlife until he is rescued than to defend himself from enemy forces. When Gary Powers was shot down over Soviet territory in his U-2, he was carrying a silenced
Hi-Standard 0.22LR pistol.
Pilots will more than likely find a
survival rifle more useful if caught in the wild. An airgun makes an interesting choice as with a pump and a supply of lead, it will potentially be more useful than a powder burning rifle. An example of the usefulness of air rifles in this situation is the air rifle
carried by Lewis and Clark on their celebrated US expedition.
BTW, I've got a scuba tank lying around in the shed. They'd be great for an application like this... if you had a regulator.
Technically, it has a regulator - as in, it's a 300 bar tank, but I fill my rifle to 210-230 bar, depending on how much I turn the valve. I'd just need to find a way to hook it up to a schrader.