This isn't the best lighting in the world but you can see what I am talking about. This is a cheap-end Sennheiser mini shotgun circa 1980, as per my previous post, unscrewed and the top half placed in the BM flightsuit pocket upside down with the hollow opening pointed up. I think its a 416 mini shotgun, but not certain. There are various models. This seems to fit in the pocket with a very similar look as the supertrooper of the inset, but not the same as the pp2. The possibilities for this are:
1) sennheiser mic is not the right part
2) sennheiser is correct but my sennheiser is not the correct model
3) the BM pocket is not accurately the same depth as the pp2 pocket
4) S Trooper part IS a sennheiser but the pp2/esb part is not
5) pp2/esb pocket depth is different from the S Trooper pocket
or a combination of these. I am leaning towards a combination of #2 and #3 as I seriously doubt my exact model is what they used (how lucky would that be? Too lucky. I don't have that sort of luck). It is still just as likely that #1 is the reason, though. To me, the two different pp2 pics in this thread show two different thicknesses of the lip, the first one not matching with my sennheiser at all as the sennheiser lip is too thin. Then again, the second pic may appear thinner because of focal distance, so the idea of two different thicknesses just might be an optical illusion I am misinterpreting. I simply can't tell for sure. It could be as likely the tool is a simple aluminum tube. Just throwing this out for the sake of the debate. Either way, if you are going to consider microphones as the likely culprit, I think you have to take a serious look at Sennheiser mini shotguns available at the time as possible candidates.
FYI the length of the top half of my mic is right at 7 inches. Does anyone have accurate measurements for the real flight suit pockets?
An interesting comparison below... my sennheiser mini-shotgun top-half next to the traditional Don Post version of the tool. Length is very close to the same. (note that the mic is not supposed to be bent up like that... it is all wonky from decades of use and abuse).
.