Tube headset for IFE??

[Elastoboy]

Mods please move to SLF if not in the right place.

Clearing out some of my late Dads stuff the other week and came across a BOAC soft tube headset. Tubes where blue and socket and ear-pieces where soft white material (PVC???). BOAC speedbird logo moulded in the centre of the tubes.

I suspect that they are early 70s, Dad spent alot of time crossing the atlantic then, what aircraft, IFE system used this type of marvel of technology??? It reminds me a tin cans and a piece of string.

Thank you

[Mike6567]

I remember them. Must have been the 707.
Mike

[Tootles the Taxi]

I'm almost certain I remember using them on a BA 747 around 80/81.

[Tempsford]

I used them on a BOAC 707 flight London-Anchorage-Tokyo-Anchorage-London in 1971. I can still remember the films showan as well, 'Cromwell' and 'When Eight Bells Toll'. The Audio Selection was a bit limited so you did hear the same tracks a lot on such a long flight.

Temps

[Load Toad]

I remember flying in the US in the early nineties where blue tube head sets were in use - I'd hazard it was a NW DC-10. I thought it quite quaint until I was asked to pay for it...

[Fareastdriver]

Bristow helicopters used them on Pumas taking oilmen offshore in the seventies. Too may got broken so they changed to audio headsts (big ones). These kept getting nicked as offshore ear defenders so they changed to loudspeakers. I think they gave up in the end as the passengers were always fast asleep. Just a set of cheap ear defenders to keep the noise out.

[WHBM]

Pneumatic IFE headsets were around from the first major systems (late 1960s) to quite recent times. I haven't come across any for a while but read a report only two or three years ago of someone finding an aircraft still so equipped.

[Groundloop]

I remember coming back from Dulles to LHR on a United 747 in 1992 and, waiting at the gate, I could very faintly hear ATC chatter and wondered if someone in the cabin was trying to listen to a scanner. Finally realised it was coming out of a hole in the side of the armrest!

Said armrest had the hole for a tube headset but also a jack point for an electronic headset. Fortunately United did supply electronic headsets on the flight!

[cdeavionics]

These were from the BOAC B747-136 fleet and were fitted from around 1972. All B747-100 aircraft were fitted by Boeing with the Instrument Systems Corporation (ISC) Multiplex system to provide the Passenger Entertainment System and Passenger Service System. This provided all the system units with the exception of the Passenger Control Unit (PCU) and the headsets, which had to be provided by the individual airline as BFE (Buyer Furnished Equipment). We opted to design the PCU ourselves (in conjunction with ISC). We also decided to go for the acoustic tube headset rather than an electrical headset for a number of reasons. Firstly cost and potential pilferage, and secondly because the frequency response of the Mux system was not that great, and an electrical headset would have been overkill - the acoustic tubes acted as low-pass filters. The real challenge was to make the acoustic headset bearable enough to be worn for the length of a movie. The first headsets were pretty uncomfortable and many passengers had to take them off for a rest every half hour or so. We spent a lot of time designing/evaluating new ear tips (including mouldable "plasticine" type material that you pressed into your ear to get a perfect moulded fit). We eventually settled on a soft white plastic tip (it was not PVC, but I cannot remember the exact material). We made these tips slightly larger than the originals and they were much more comfortable. We eventually went for electro-magnetic headsets around the mid-seventies if I recall correctly.
The Mux system was by far the most complex avionics system on the B747 (640 "black boxes" per aircraft)) and was also the most unreliable - it had an MTBF of around one hour in the early days.

[Fly380]

Before all the fancy aircraft medical kits on board nowadays, these headsets were used more than once as catheters. Owch.:uhoh:

[Schroedinger]

Back in the '70s I "lifted" a tube headset from one of my local flightd in British Columbia, probably CPAir. They were the perfect device for tuning the two SU downdraft carbs on my TR-3. Taped them about midway up the air intake, and adjusted until the sound was balanced.

[Sultan Ismail]

That's a piece of aviation technology that fortunately has ended up in the bin!
My first recollection using them was Johannesburg to Zurich with Swissair in December 1970 on a DC8, as I recall this was coupled with an endless loop projector, never did find out the gauge, which had different starting times in the 3 or 4 cabins.
I particularly recall a United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to New York in 1993 where we paid $5 for the use of such headsets, however at the end of the flight the hostie announced that headsets were to be returned and if they had not been serviceable then the $5 would be refunded. Needless to say........