They`re very light, and the headseats often has 30-35db passive noise isolation. And the price of a helmet and a headset is often quite affordable! Maybe the last factor is because many parahelmets are made in Europe (where I live), while most GA headsets are made in the US. So the former is relatively cheaper becuse of things like shipping and taxes?

Headsets like the Bose A20 is great, no doubt, but I`ve never thought any other headset was downright bad. And all the audio challenges I`ve encountered has been because of the radio (Or ANC-headsets that runs out of batteries…). 3M/Peltor seems to be a common choice of cans for paramotorists. When I`m working in the woods, I always reach for my Peltors! Should I feel bad for thinking they are just as comfy as mosts aviaion headsets? I´ve seen people mention durability, but since the cans I use for cutting trees survive, whats going on in airplanes that`s so hard on them?

I am in the market for a headset, and I think using a helmet when flying over woods and mountains makes sense. Why not get a paramotor helmet with integrated headsets for less than the cost of a set of DC H10-13`s?

What am I missing? Are they offering the wrong kind or poor protection? I mean, People are suggesting bike helmets here as well… And I absolutely do not care how I look. If the best fitting helmet has pink polkadots, it´s what I get.

You just have to survive bouncing your soft gourd off the fuselage tubes in a reasonable kinetic energy exchange. No helmet is going to protect you from a stall/spin or high speed crash. I think ultralight helmets are fine, especially if it means you’ll wear it every time out.

In my experience the Peltor with gel seals was the best passive noise headset ever. When I first became a CFI many moons ago I couldn't afford the ANR offerings from Lightspeed etc (I don't even think Bose offered an aviation product at that time).

I recall walking into the aviator store at Boeing field to try on all the headsets and throw down what money I could. The salesman was very helpful in describing the features of the various brands as I tried them all on. When I put on the Peltor I realized I couldn't hear a damn thing he was saying. That made it easy. I took them off and said "I'll take these". Comfortable all day long and 24 dB passive.

That first set was stolen out of my car but I bought a replacement which I still own. I've since bought an identical set - for cheap because only ANR is cool at this point. The Peltor looks cheap, with its thin headband. They actually are pretty cheap when you buy them for shooting or industrial purposes (now obviously sold under the 3M brand) with no electronics.

I bought the Bose A20 for my job. The ANR works well but when you "pop" a set of batteries in the air you'll find they are worse than not wearing anything at all. I leave the A20s in Alaska and still use the Peltor at home. I'm heading out in the morning to ferry a plane from Colorado to Maine and it's Peltor all the way.

Side note, I'm super confused as to why there aren't gel seals available for the A20s. The stock seals get very stiff in cold weather and they don't last very long.

Back to your initial question, my Team Wendy (you can spend more money if you require a more manly name) helmet is plastic, light and affordable. And you guessed it, I scoured my local craigslist for a few days until a set of Peltors came up for $75 and I sacrificed the head band to install them in the Team Wendy helmet. Since I use that helmet to fly behind an extremely loud engine (Shvetzov 5 cylinder radial which has open stacks) I've just bought the conversion kit to add ANR on top of the passive.

Can you provide more info on the ANR conversion kit for Peltors? I've been looking at Petzl helmets that are headset compatible (Vertex, Strato), and visor compatible, but have struggled to find a headset that is cleanly compatible. I'm helmet curious, but it seems like everything in aviation has a huge markup...

jcadwell wrote:Can you provide more info on the ANR conversion kit for Peltors? I've been looking at Petzl helmets that are headset compatible (Vertex, Strato), and visor compatible, but have struggled to find a headset that is cleanly compatible. I'm helmet curious, but it seems like everything in aviation has a huge markup...

Aircraft Spruce is a reseller of this kit:
https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/ ... -11956.php
You can ditch the battery pack (and drilling a hole in one of the ear cups) by going with this new cable:
https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/ ... pcable.php
Since I'm building an experimental it will be no problem for me to provide ship power at the headset jack locations.

The helmet I'm using (which I learned of on this forum) is the Team Wendy SAR helmet which can be adapted to a number of different headsets.

jcadwell wrote: Can you provide more info on the ANR conversion kit for Peltors?...

I sent this outfit a DC headset & they installed one of their ANR kits.
I'm very happy with it.
Here's a link to their Peltor ANR kit.
You can DIY or sent it in for them to install.
The installation cost was $50 six years ago.

https://www.headsetsinc.com/product/pel ... t-anr-kit/

Zzz wrote:You just have to survive bouncing your soft gourd off the fuselage tubes in a reasonable kinetic energy exchange. No helmet is going to protect you from a stall/spin or high speed crash. I think ultralight helmets are fine, especially if it means you’ll wear it every time out.

What do parrots and intelligent people have in common?

They both hear things other intelligent people say and then repeat it with zero thought about what they are saying....

Only a couple data points to offer, because I generally don't run around taking pictures of friends mishaps...

The first was by definition a stall spin accident. A very good friend and mentor. Had his head up his posterior pulling out of a spray run in the dark, looked down to check a map, looked up and saw terra firma. Only choice left was to try and outclimb/turn the terrain, which ended with a stall and subsequent spin. Sloping terrain actually ended the sequence as a pancake. The proverbial 'Brick shithouse' of an airplane coupled with a helmet and other good practices, he lived to fly another day, but it was almost a year in the healing.



The next set was a competitor. Good dude. Good stick. Full tilt cruise speed impact with terrain. He says he looked down at a map, and then climbed out of a wreck. Judging by the amount of spent '5 hour energy' drinks in the wreckage, and knowing how long our nights were that year, I would not exclude the possibility that he simply dozed off and the map check was just the last thing he could remember. He literally walked away from that, and an AT402 is 140 mph airplane in cruise.




The point of this posting is not to be argumentative, it is food for thought. I don't wear a helmet in my day to day GA, but if you're going to go that route, why cut your nose off to spite your face. At work I recently switched brands from my long time favorite, the Gallet. I will post something about my latest helmet, I think it may be a winner for many GA folks.

'mornin Zzz
Rob

Headsets inc....

Used them for years and years. Excellent bang for the buck. Still use their power supply jacks in all of our planes and I'd venture to guess they exist in the vast majority of ag aircraft. I migrated to Zulu when I migrated to Bluetooth peripheral stuff, but I see HSI now has BT as well.


Take care, Rob

Rob wrote:'mornin Zzz
Rob

Ever heard of Cunningham’s Law? Very effective at getting old goats like you to type.

Zzz wrote:

Rob wrote:'mornin Zzz
Rob

Ever heard of Cunningham’s Law? Very effective at getting old goats like you to type.

So is wind and morning fog

Thanks for the links to the Peltor solutions.

I agree with Rob, mostly. I too wore a helmet at work for quite a few years, when it was required by policy by my employer. Helmets were required when performing low level ops, off airport wheel ops, and a few other "Special Uses".

Since my employer required helmets to be worn in some regimes, they also specified which types of helmets were required, and it was up to them to pay for them.

I wore an SPH-2 (Army style helicopter helmet) for several years until I discovered Gallet helmets. Ordered one of their helmets and never looked back. These are very high quality helmets and are available with a variety of electronics, night vision attachments, etc, etc.
These helmets have been tested and are intended for one specific use: Aviation. They are not designed for race cars, and adapted for airplanes..... That's important. Why? Because aircraft accident injuries have been carefully studied and often differ substantially from head trauma inflicted by other types of "Fun".

The other thing that we found to be essential regarding helmets is to ensure that they are fitted properly. Understand that many of my flying days wearing a helmet were up to eight hours. A poorly fitted helmet becomes a torture device at about hour two. A really ugly one, that happens at about twenty minutes.

I wore that Gallet helmet not only because I was being paid to do so, and the helmet was provided at no cost to me. I wore it because it was a valuable piece of safety equipment in what could be a pretty hostile work environment.

I was NOT required to wear a helmet for more routine, point to point flights, and I did not do so. Since I've retired from that job, I have not worn a helmet in an aircraft. Frankly, to me the risk is simply not sufficient to warrant doing so. Understand that I no longer do hours and hours of low level maneuvering, nor to I do any really hard core off airport ops these days.

I'll admit that a knock on the noggin can be pretty uncomfortable. A really serious impact, of course, can kill you. For that sort of impact, however, you really need a helmet that's been carefully designed and tested for aviation use.

If wearing a climbing helmet, a bike helmet or???? makes you happy, go for it. If it prevents a few lumps on your head, it may have been well worth the cost. Won't bother me in the least, and no way I'd poke fun at that. It's simply a choice.

But, whatever you do, make certain your headgear, helmet or headset, includes the best hearing protection you can afford. That means buy the best ANR set that's out there. You don't want to wind up like me, wearing hearing aids, in a few years.

MTV

Never intended to turn this into another «why wear a helmet»-thread. I think the consensus us that it will help stack the odds in the wearers favor. Also I get the impression that very few will turn their nose up on people who wears them - or vice versa. Feel free.

The only thing I disagree very with, is when people say it`s not good form to don a bucket, nomex suit etc. etc. and then toss your pax an crusty old headset and tell them to get in. I think it`d be more important to use all tools avaliable when you have friends or family on board. My reasoning is that IF anything happens, they will need all the help from me they can get. It`s weird form or solidarity, to get knocked out and useless yoursekf. I have volunteered for avalanche rescue, and because of my training here, I believe that the increased risk people will take when using extra safety gear, is insignificant.

But it`s not like I am losing sleep over this. The first line of defence is practice, practice, lessons with instructors, practice and lessons with instructors and then some more practice.

What made me look into helmets now, is that I begun training in a tricked out Savage Cub. I haven`t flown «true» STOL A/C before and was caught off guard of how quickly it lost speed. I begun flaring too soon and almost stalled out 30 feet above ground. Ofcourse the instructor caught this in time, but it happened faster than I had expected.

TLDR: I am a low hour LSA pilot, flying over forests and mountains. It felt like it makes more sense to buy a headset AND helmet a helmet, when I can get it quite cheap. The money I save can be spend on more training.

I looked into using a MSA pro noise canceling headset, higher end shooting headset, with a bone mic for a bit, it’s small and light, might have to look into that again

Varanger wrote:Never intended to turn this into another «why wear a helmet»-thread. I think the consensus us that it will help stack the odds in the wearers favor. Also I get the impression that very few will turn their nose up on people who wears them - or vice versa. Feel free.

The only thing I disagree very with, is when people say it`s not good form to don a bucket, nomex suit etc. etc. and then toss your pax an crusty old headset and tell them to get in. I think it`d be more important to use all tools avaliable when you have friends or family on board. My reasoning is that IF anything happens, they will need all the help from me they can get. I have volunteered for avalanche rescue, and because of my training here, I believe that the increased risk people will take when using extra safety gear, is insignificant.

But it`s not like I am losing sleep over this. The first line of defence is practice, practice, lessons with instructors, practice and lessons with instructors and then some more practice.

What made me look into helmets now, is that I begun training in a tricked out Savage Cub. I haven`t flown «true» STOL A/C before and was caught off guard of how quickly it lost speed. I begun flaring too soon and almost stalled out 30 feet above ground. Ofcourse the instructor caught this in time, but it happened faster than I had expected.

TLDR: I am a low hour LSA pilot, flying over forests and mountains. It felt like it makes more sense to buy a headset AND helmet a helmet, when I can get it quite cheap. The money I save can be spend on more training.

Actually, in some ways, that type aircraft may provide less structure for protection, so a helmet may indeed make more sense there. But, it also suggests the best helmet you can afford.

Less structure MAY offer less protection….but, of course, it depends on the arrival.

MTV