Helmets in offshore ops?
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I should also state that these comments were specific to the S92 design, with regards to the hazard from the panels behind, but it will be fairly common I imagine, and certainly of the various types I have flown over the years, it would be a fairly common hazard.
HB, do you not have head restraints on your seats? We have the Martin Baker 'Hi-comfort' seats, fitted with them.
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Some do, but some have also been removed, I am not quite sure why. We do also have the high-comfort seats now, which I am sure you will agree are a big improvement over the older "no-comfort" seats.
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212man, m damn jealous u guys are finally going to get ur domes... as for the STAS, well u r light years away from us; we r still flying in the stone age offshore scene in my side of the Sth China Sea lol....
Tried to take my own STAS a few years back and was seen as being a trouble maker and could be sued by the local air authority body
as for wearing my own helmet, uhm another 
Tried to take my own STAS a few years back and was seen as being a trouble maker and could be sued by the local air authority body
as for wearing my own helmet, uhm another
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I wore a helmet for 15 years in the military and I am glad had the protection as the flying was -by civil standards - risky. I flew HEMS, SAR and firefighting when I left and also wore a helmet and again was glad because of the inherent risks.
I now fly offshore and am glad that i don't wear a helmet as it has to be one of the safest forms of flying around and helmets are bloody uncomfortable - even a well fitting Alpha. My David Clark headset is a blessing after 6 hours in 40 degree temps.
Wear a helmet if you want by all means but don't make the things mandatory.
Wear one in the sim? Give me a break. Might as well wear one in the car.
I now fly offshore and am glad that i don't wear a helmet as it has to be one of the safest forms of flying around and helmets are bloody uncomfortable - even a well fitting Alpha. My David Clark headset is a blessing after 6 hours in 40 degree temps.
Wear a helmet if you want by all means but don't make the things mandatory.
Wear one in the sim? Give me a break. Might as well wear one in the car.
Epiphany
I also spent 15 yrs flying with a mk4A. Then an Alpha with the plod. I am now on the SNS and would not be able to offer 1 reason as to why a helmet wouldn't benefit.
Nothing worse than having to break the seal of a crap peltor headset, when flying a 76c, to don a pair of sun glasses. To exacerbate what is already inadequate hearing protection. No need with a helmet that would have a dark visor, Cost less than £1000 with ANR, weighs less than 900g and would offer some practical visibility if you were unlucky enough to be floating alone in the North sea, while wearing the current emmersion suit issued to aircrew on the North Sea.
Mac
I also spent 15 yrs flying with a mk4A. Then an Alpha with the plod. I am now on the SNS and would not be able to offer 1 reason as to why a helmet wouldn't benefit.
Nothing worse than having to break the seal of a crap peltor headset, when flying a 76c, to don a pair of sun glasses. To exacerbate what is already inadequate hearing protection. No need with a helmet that would have a dark visor, Cost less than £1000 with ANR, weighs less than 900g and would offer some practical visibility if you were unlucky enough to be floating alone in the North sea, while wearing the current emmersion suit issued to aircrew on the North Sea.
Mac
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Good luck with your wishes Macaco and all of you who want to wear one - I have no objection.
I don't plan to have an accident or be floating around in the oggin. I fly a large, well maintained, twin engine helicopter from A to B and back again at 3000 feet and have been flying helicopters for 30 years.
I have more chance of being run over by a bus in the high street and I certainly don't wear one there.
Get a decent headset - Peltors are crap.
I don't plan to have an accident or be floating around in the oggin. I fly a large, well maintained, twin engine helicopter from A to B and back again at 3000 feet and have been flying helicopters for 30 years.
I have more chance of being run over by a bus in the high street and I certainly don't wear one there.
Get a decent headset - Peltors are crap.
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Helmets are good
They will keep the seagulls, and associated parts out of your eyes!
...provided you have the shield down on impact.
3.5 Kg X 135 KTS = Mess and/or Death
But headsets sure are cumfy and the passengers don't complain that they don't have the same protection as you since they have the critical task of sitting there.
My vote is for the helmet.
But hey, we all know there aren't many large sea birds frequenting the Atlantic...
...sarcasm
...provided you have the shield down on impact.
3.5 Kg X 135 KTS = Mess and/or Death
But headsets sure are cumfy and the passengers don't complain that they don't have the same protection as you since they have the critical task of sitting there.
My vote is for the helmet.
But hey, we all know there aren't many large sea birds frequenting the Atlantic...
...sarcasm
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Good luck with your wishes Macaco and all of you who want to wear one - I have no objection.
I don't plan to have an accident or be floating around in the oggin. I fly a large, well maintained, twin engine helicopter from A to B and back again at 3000 feet and have been flying helicopters for 30 years.
I have more chance of being run over by a bus in the high street and I certainly don't wear one there.
Get a decent headset - Peltors are crap.
I don't plan to have an accident or be floating around in the oggin. I fly a large, well maintained, twin engine helicopter from A to B and back again at 3000 feet and have been flying helicopters for 30 years.
I have more chance of being run over by a bus in the high street and I certainly don't wear one there.
Get a decent headset - Peltors are crap.
Epiphany - I suggest you re-read at least the very first page of this thread, and you will see that this is not just about crash protection. In fact that is a secondary to the real issue, which is the loss of hearing issue. I too wore a Mk4 for my military flying career, and it certainly was not the most comfortable thing in the world, but I certainly had a far better hearing protection than with a headset. In my time in the military, I never experienced any hearing problem at all. After the first couple of years flying S92 I started to get a deterioration in my hearing audiogram tests. We are seeing this now in extremely high incidences, especially on the S92, and have had several cases where pilots have had to stop flying due to tinnitus.
I am very glad to hear that you don't plan on having an accident or floating around in the water, and you will be pleased to hear that neither do I, nor for that matter any pilots that I know. The fact remains however, that I know quite a few others who did not plan on having an accident either, but somehow they still did, and some were also on very safe A to B routes. Some survived and some did not. Personally I hope to god that I never do end up in that nasty scenario where all is going wrong, but I will be prepared if it does in every way possible, including knowing my aircraft, procedures, drills and not letting myself get complacent for a second. Who knows when that lightening will strike or a large bird might take out the tail rotor, or the gearbox fails, or some other form of serious mechanical failure rears its ugly face, or you fly yourself into the water because of some chain of CRM failures during an ARA on your very safe A to B. Or perhaps because you have been flying for 30 years already, it won't happen to you. I don't mean to be flippant, but all these things have happened very recently and caused an aircraft to hit the water. I bet none of those crews planned on an accident either.
Is this Tinnitus? If I flew for around 3-4 hrs, wearing the company supplied peltor headset in an old S76, Inverter and AC gen whining away in the background, I find that the same evening I get a ticking in one ear which just won't go away whatever I try. The doc says no sign of wax so it's not baro related, he doesn't think. If I don't fly for a couple of days, no more noise and all well again until i fly again. The problem is exacerbated with a number of days flying 3-4 + hours a day. It drives me nuts, but I was led to believe tinnitus is a high pitched squeal/noise?
I'd be happy to trial helmets if it gave me some more hearing protection. I worked in a very noisy engineering environment for a number of years and never had similar trouble or degradation of hearing, until I started flying full time.
I'd be happy to trial helmets if it gave me some more hearing protection. I worked in a very noisy engineering environment for a number of years and never had similar trouble or degradation of hearing, until I started flying full time.
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Birds don't come windscreens very often offshore. When did it last happen in the North Sea.
Can someone prove that helmets provide better noise attenuation than a good headset.
How many pilots who think helmets are a good idea for impact protection lock their seat harnesses on approach and take off?
Can someone prove that helmets provide better noise attenuation than a good headset.
How many pilots who think helmets are a good idea for impact protection lock their seat harnesses on approach and take off?
How many pilots who think helmets are a good idea for impact protection lock their seat harnesses on approach and take off?
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As I said HB - I have no objection to anyone wanting to wear a helmet if you think that it will make your North Sea flying any safer. I just think that it is OTT.Of the recent NS accidents that I know of a helmet would have made little difference to the crews concerned.
I expect to be firefighting again later this year and will be wearing my Alpha as will be spending most of the time below 200' dodging, trees, hills, birds, other aircraft and sitting in a 50' hover at 90% TQ. When I get back offshore it will go back in the attic. My choice.
As regards noise protection - WHAT DID YOU SAY??
I expect to be firefighting again later this year and will be wearing my Alpha as will be spending most of the time below 200' dodging, trees, hills, birds, other aircraft and sitting in a 50' hover at 90% TQ. When I get back offshore it will go back in the attic. My choice.
As regards noise protection - WHAT DID YOU SAY??
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North Sea bird strke Unst, 1985/6 can.t remember exact date, adult gannet came through the windscreen of a Bell 212 at 200', knocked the pilot out cold (wearing helmet) dismantled itself against the frame behind the pilot and hit the winchman in the face, luckily co-pilot took control landed safely, aircraft smelt of dead bird and fish guts for months, remember wearing face mask when I changed the screen overnight.
S
S
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As I said HB - I have no objection to anyone wanting to wear a helmet if you think that it will make your North Sea flying any safer. I just think that it is OTT.Of the recent NS accidents that I know of a helmet would have made little difference to the crews concerned.
I expect to be firefighting again later this year and will be wearing my Alpha as will be spending most of the time below 200' dodging, trees, hills, birds, other aircraft and sitting in a 50' hover at 90% TQ. When I get back offshore it will go back in the attic. My choice.
I expect to be firefighting again later this year and will be wearing my Alpha as will be spending most of the time below 200' dodging, trees, hills, birds, other aircraft and sitting in a 50' hover at 90% TQ. When I get back offshore it will go back in the attic. My choice.
I do speculate as to how we will stand with regards to loss of license insurance if we lose it due to hearing loss, in an environment where it was a known probability and proper and adequate precautions to prevent this were not taken. The scenario could feasibly play out whereby the insurance company refuses to pay on the basis that due caution was not exercised. This puts both the individual pilot and the company he works for in a difficult position. The pilot is now forced to sue the company for a very considerable sum in order to cover his loss of earnings. In this day and age of litigation and blame, the insurance companies invest heavily in only paying out when they really have to, so I am sure they will investigate this, and with the evidence all readily available to prove their point, it is hard to argue against it, when it may very well be a preventable occurrence.
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.
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.
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Colibri,
I don't think anyone is suggesting that helmets be mandatory, nor do I for one second think there is any "image" or fashion element as you seem to think. That comment I found rather amusing. Having worn the military helmet for many years, I totally agree that it was a heavy and uncomfortable beast, especially when flying with NVG's for long periods. The difference however with new modern helmets is huge. Much lighter and more comfortable, and the key is that they offer a huge benefit for noise reduction. I personally do not wear one yet, as I want to also see all the options, and personally if a really good ANR was available, then perhaps that would be the answer, but right now the helmets seem to offer the best overall protection. Even with a good ANR headset, when you have to wear sunglasses you lose a lot of the protection.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that helmets be mandatory, nor do I for one second think there is any "image" or fashion element as you seem to think. That comment I found rather amusing. Having worn the military helmet for many years, I totally agree that it was a heavy and uncomfortable beast, especially when flying with NVG's for long periods. The difference however with new modern helmets is huge. Much lighter and more comfortable, and the key is that they offer a huge benefit for noise reduction. I personally do not wear one yet, as I want to also see all the options, and personally if a really good ANR was available, then perhaps that would be the answer, but right now the helmets seem to offer the best overall protection. Even with a good ANR headset, when you have to wear sunglasses you lose a lot of the protection.