Mark Y. wrote:Could be similar to the post about only buying a bas harness for the pilot seat.......I don't think I would have many passengers if I put on a helmet when i climbed in the plane......Single pilot, open cockpit, hardcore off airport - sure, good idea. Otherwise - comparable to Leslie Neilson's naked gun full body condom......

This hits the mark for me. My wife wouldn't get in the plane if I out a helmet on and didn't have one for her. And same for a lot of my passengers...

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Rob when you are bored and thinking of ways to cause hate and discontent ,do you have a written list of topics. What is your secret source of inspiration .
Hope to see you at Dead Cow.

'" know guys who won't eat fatty beef but drink like a fish."

Hey, eat lots of highly marbled beef! Its good for you, and if you run out we can easliy ship some more.

Blown56 wrote:Rob when you are bored and thinking of ways to cause hate and discontent ,do you have a written list of topics. What is your secret source of inspiration .
Hope to see you at Dead Cow.

Hey 56, I hope to see you at Dead Cow. Oregon weather that time of year can be fickle. I will be there unless the wx is so bad I might need a helmet to survive.

My inspiration on the helmet dilemma is from personal experience with safety gear, which include helmets. How far does a person go with personal safety equipment? I still ride quads quite a bit with no helmet. I used to ware a little skull cap on my Harley. One day I hit two deer and went down. I was on my Buell sport bike. I had a full coverage helmet on. Boy was I glad when I looked at the damage to the face part of the helmet.

If I were going to attempt to fly like Steve, Greg, Kevin, Joe, Jason, and others like them, I would ware a helmet. I'm not in that league and I'm not going to try out.

Cheers...Rob

I know the original post was somewhat in jest, but I have to get a little serious...

OregonMaule wrote:If I were going to attempt to fly like Steve, Greg, Kevin, Joe, Jason, and others like them, I would ware a helmet. I'm not in that league and I'm not going to try out.

I don't think you even need to fly like those guys are known for. I can think of one story where an accident happened during a takeoff at a big paved runway airport. It was a time when you'd think that you least need a helmet.

The guy ground-looped and flipped his Cub, rattled his melon off the fuselage tubing a few times pretty hard. Suffered a nasty concussion. That was several years ago and he's been plagued with migraines and vibration-induced nausea ever since. Just driving down a washboard gravel road can make him headachey and ill. A helmet would have certainly prevented such a miserable existence. TBI can be a life-changing occurrence.

It's not going to save you from a nasty crash any more than your SPOT will. It will save your head during a flip-over or other upset on landing. It really doesn't take much head trauma to mess you up permanently or even kill you. Maybe there's a fire but you were knocked unconscious. Everybody always says "it's not a matter of if, but when." Well, if it involves me bumping my head hard, I'd rather have the helmet on.

Most importantly, it's a good surface for stickers.

I can admit to doing a LOT of stupid stuff.... Come to think of it, NOT wearing a helmet in most of my GA flying ranks up there near the top.

I religiously wear a helmet all day (night) at work in a turbine airplane that is far less likely to let me down than the 60 year old recip I fly into the boondocks. It is built to crash, and I fly it near civilization, on what amounts to a flight plan with all the people that know where I'm going and when I should be back. Yet taking the old recips into no man's land over trees, mountains and ice, I don't even flinch about going commando...

Thank you for making me think about that. I've never thought it ludicrous for other people to wear them, but reflecting on it, I'm thinking it's pretty ludicrous for me not to. I bought a new helmet for my wife a year or so ago, she doesn't wear hers, because I never wear one. Might be a good time to get her started.

Take care, Rob

Dammit, helmets n shit [emoji24]


Bose only freedom, Yes!


There is secretly a layer of tinfoil in my helmet, kiss my ass aliens and/or governments [emoji1591]


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We have all read that driving to the airport is MORE dangerous than the flight itself, right? Everyone loves that anecdote.

So who is wearing a helmet in their car....? Or have you considered air-bags in your plane?? Maybe you ride a motorbike..

I have certainly read that. But it isn't true, no matter how many times you read it, unless you are driving to the airport to board a part 121 carrier twin turbine aircraft or equivalent.


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Motorcycling is definitely more dangerous than flying. Driving to the airport on a two lane highway is definatley more dangerous than flying a light plane. Passing within a few feet of each other with a closing speed of more than 120mph honestly seems insane when you think about it. A sudden seized wheel bearing, blown tire, sneeze, cell phone rings can easily be an instant head-on collision with no time for a reaction to avoid. The more vehicles you pass, the higher the odds. Which can be pretty high. Flying any aircraft normally (not hard core aerobatics or bush flying) whether light or heavy a/c, I think is safer than driving.

We are captives of our individual experience generally. Most of us neither do nor read scientific research. No, Googling it is not scientific research. This personal and community experience is appropriate and is called history. George Orwell understood the value of history when he had the donkey in Animal Farm say repeatedly, "Donkeys live a long time."

Some here have lived a long time and have experienced data worthy iterations. Some have done the extensive research. Some have simply avoided the more relevant experience.

We are also human and make our decisions based on many factors, some scientific, some historical, and some emotional. Some of us are more concerned with individual rights and responsibilities and some of us are more concerned with community rights and responsibilities.

All of it makes life interesting.

Part of the reason I don't wear a helmet snow boarding is when I am making a run through the trees, I am well aware of my helmetless head and adjust my speed accordingly. If I start wearing a helmet, I will go faster. Sure I could wear the helmet and go the same speed and be safer, but that's not how I roll I also don't carry a spare tire in any of my cars or trucks, and haven't for decades, BUT I keep all my tires in tip top shape and have yet to be stranded anywhere. If I carried spares I'd probably no doubt be a little more blase about my tire's conditions. That somewhat explains why I have yet to wear a helmet in the plane, though I sure get all the arguements why I should.

When we get old and pretty used up, Triple A is worth the money.

It seems that most sports go thru a transition like this and there are always a supply of "you're more likely to die doing blah blah" arguments to go arond.

Hey, a lot of us are getting head injuries in otherwise minimal incidents. Maybe we should wear helmets.
Pfftt - Helmets? Are you weak? You only need a helmet if you're doing something crazy or think you might crash.
(more an more people wear helmets...)
Hey, you're not going to get into that thing without a helmet are you?

Bicycles, Hockey, Baseball, NASCAR, motorcycles,..... There are tons of examples of the progression towards preventative safety equipment. (lap belts, shoulder harness, rollover protection, safety glass, airbags, more airbags, crumple points...)

Has there ever been a study on head injuries in aircraft accidents? I dont know if the records are accurate enough to count cuts or concussions tho.

I have never had anyone refuse not to fly with me because I am wearing my helmet and if they do I really don't care, there loss not mine. I fly with my wife and she does not have one and probably would not wear it if I had one for her.

The clients that got in the cub in Alaska never cared, we had crappy helmets and offered them one but most would rather not wear it.

I like mine except on really hot days and then I just deal with it. I would never ride my dirt bike without one except maybe to and from the shop on my property.

I am probably past the point in my flying where I really needed it but I have seen what happens to someone when they don't have one on and it sucks!

courierguy wrote:Part of the reason I don't wear a helmet snow boarding is when I am making a run through the trees, I am well aware of my helmetless head and adjust my speed accordingly. If I start wearing a helmet, I will go faster. Sure I could wear the helmet and go the same speed and be safer, but that's not how I roll I also don't carry a spare tire in any of my cars or trucks, and haven't for decades, BUT I keep all my tires in tip top shape and have yet to be stranded anywhere. If I carried spares I'd probably no doubt be a little more blase about my tire's conditions. That somewhat explains why I have yet to wear a helmet in the plane, though I sure get all the arguements why I should.

I put a helmet into the personal choice category but I can't imagine going into the woods without a spare tire. Some things you can control, others you can't.

That said, I'm a guy that likes to be prepared for a challenge... tool kit, shovel, axe, tow straps, tire plugs, extra valve stem, tire levers, jumper cables, water, food lights, knives, gun-- good thing I drive a one-ton!

I got into the habit about 35 years ago, when I was driving a 2 WD Toyota diesel pickup, wonderfully economical but gutless driving up the 1650' vert slope I lived on then every. It was dead weight, maybe only 30 lbs., but do it twice and that's 60 lb.s, do it for a year and that's a bit over 5 ton. In all my running around local, say within 50 miles, in the last 30+ years, I have never been stranded by a flat tire, not once. Even if I were, I'd make a phone call and get picked up or whatever. Now when I was really out in the boonies, on purpose, I'd throw in a spare, as I always had one at home ready to go, so we agree I guess, carry a spare when really out there. For day to day local driving, even though I now only live 1200' up the spare stays in the garage. i do carry one of those little cheap 12v compressors though, and heck my Prius never even came with a spare, just a patch kit.

Superstition may enter into it also, maybe if I started carrying spares, I'd have tire problems, maybe if I started wearing a helmet flying I'd....... One good thing about getting older, you can back up some personal hare brained idea when called out on it by others, by stating how long you've been doing it with no repercussions, that's me and spares, and helmets, and a hell of a lot of other things. I guess I am too set in my way to change I do wear a helmet mountain biking, and it has paid off judging by the nicks and gouges in it

30 lbs is the craziest reason I have heard of for not carrying a spare. Now if we are talking about light weight airplanes then I will buy into it but when you are talking about a 3000 lb truck that's does not make sense to me.

I have had plenty of flats with perfectly good tires with many different kinds of objects. The passion rock is just one of them (just another Fu$%ing rock)

All I got from this is that many things in life are dangerous.... and I need a helmet. (No really, I DO want one)

+1 on the one about farming. When I started flying I had people telling me how dangerous flying was. I promptly torn into them. As a farmer/rancher, my job is WAY deadlier. I know too many people (and children) that have been killed or maimed on the farm.


P.S. Regarding helmets with pax, I think you need to either ALL wear helmets, or ALL don't. When your head is flopping around with a helmet, it becomes a hazard to anyone without one.

Thanks everyone for your candor and honesty.

I may get a helmet one day, just not mentally there yet.

I was thinking about the helmets we wore at the fire department. For years we never strapped them on tight. We wore them like construction workers. Finally the powers that be, mandated the helmet strap be in use. I'll bet you can guess what I didn't do.

At the fire department we used to ware regular leather work gloves. After a {few} burns on the hands the management got us these new wizz bang gloves that would keep your hands from getting burned. They also made it impossible to quickly and efficiently do your job. Once again, I went old school, thumbing my nose at management.

Cheers...Rob