Do air force combat pilots use a true Sign Language?

As I am continuing to read the book “Language in Space – a window on Israeli Sign Language” by Irit Meir and Wendy Sandler (ISBN 965-311-056-X), the following question arose in my mind.

Combat pilots serving in air forces of the world are used to describe their dogfights by their hands.
Apparently spoken language is not sufficiently expressive to do justice to the nuances of tactical maneuvers performed by pilots during the heat of air battles.

My question: do they use only pantomime, or do their gestures have elements of true Sign Language?
Was any research done about this subject?
Are air force cadets taught, in a systematic way, how to describe dogfights?

Author: Omer Zak

I am deaf since birth. I played with big computers which eat punched cards and spew out printouts since age 12. Ever since they became available, I work and play with desktop size computers which eat keyboard keypresses and spew out display pixels. Among other things, I developed software which helped the deaf in Israel use the telephone network, by means of home computers equipped with modems. Several years later, I developed Hebrew localizations for some cellular phones, which helped the deaf in Israel utilize the cellular phone networks. I am interested in entrepreneurship, Science Fiction and making the world more accessible to people with disabilities.

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