Not a-bloody-gain ! I have little to add to the previous contributions apart from what has been written already and I hoped this topic had died long ago.
I had to wear a helmet for almost 10 years in the military and the extra weight has left me with difficulty sleeping due to recurring neck pain which results in difficulty finding a comfortable head position on a pillow.
The military doctor suggested that the wearing of a helmet might also have caused my mild form of tinnitus, which increases whenever my neck gets stiff and sore; a certainty whenever I flew with a helmet for more than an hour or two.
The relief of wearing only a headset when I became a civvy pilot was wonderful and if I'd been required to wear a helmet during the subsequent 30 years, I would probably have lost my pilot medical before halfway through my career.
I have a good suspicion who started this thread and I can't help thinking that "image" might have played a part in his thinking. All I can say is that the risks of serious head injuries to North Sea pilots who wear only headsets are vanishingly small historically, but the health risk to me of wearing a helmet is absolutely 100%.
If you can persuade our employer to stump up the costs for this somewhat pointless exercise, then please ensure that the wearing of such will remain optional. Furthermore, I know more than one passenger whose nervousness would be increased to perceive that the pilots are dressed as if going into a war zone.
Why not go the "whole hog" and get us modified seats so that we can wear parachutes in case the main rotor stops turning too? After all, up at flight level ridiculous in an EC225 there would be sufficient height. You might think I'm being facetious, but that's how some of our passengers think.
Last edited by Colibri49; 11th Sep 2010 at 21:05.