How did pilots stay warm?

Mike-I guess humans were considered more important than a dog back then!! That statement will probably raise some hackles, more or less. Really, this info came from the book AMERICA'S MUNITIONS 1917-1918 by Benedict Cromwell, Ass't Sec. of War.

[Vic_Mouton]

So that,s what an unconfirmed victory is. Rene Fonk must have been quite a stud. If Bill Clinton was born at the right time he could have been the Ace of aces

VBR
Vic

[Richard_Schrader]

I knocked over 5 port-potties with the blades of a CH-47 at summer camp in 1982. Does that make me an ace?

Richard, you will always be an ace in my book!
Even modern general aviation aircraft are less than warm in the wintertime! I recall a flight I made last winter from Dallas-Love to Tulsa Ok in a cessna 152, the outside air temperature was -10 degrees and even with the cabin heat on full blast the cold air just kept migrating forward to the cockpit. i thought that i would never get warm again!!!!

[Barrett]

The definitive answer, based on my first 500 hours in open-cockpit aircraft:
They didn't.

Just a small point, and I'm working from memory here, but wasn't the Sidcot suit in fact the electrically-heated one? Invented by Sid Cotten, hence the name? And from what I've read, pretty unreliable, since the wiring embedded in the suit frequently shorted out from the twisting it took from being inside clothing. I would imagine this would either result in: the suit not working; the suit starting to get a little TOO warm; or mild electric shocks.

Because of the bitter cold, it was said that most messes and other rooms were kept extremely warm even in summer. The pilots just couldn't get enough heat once back on the ground!

There may have been wired Sidcots, but the suit wasn't designed to be electrically heated. Yes, it was designed by Sidney Cotton. And yes, RFC/RAF messes tended to be extremely warm -- and, according to what I've read, rather funky. (The description of these "unpleasant odours" in an official RFC pamphlet is rather amusing.)

Mary;
Richard will always be a ace to me also.
Jeni

[Rittm]

Pilots just couldn't get warm enough,...Hmmm...that would explain some of the behavior I observed. Actually I partook in some of it. (Is partook a word?) Of course I also remember being pelted with about twenty snowballs all at once. That may have messed up my brain. Brrrrrrr!

Rittm;
I wonder what did it.
Jeni