I used to hate when some skippers will insist to keep the headset on and loudspeakers open at the same time. Like you say, it creates very annoying interference making the communication more difficult to undestand. I really don’t undestand why people will do that. If my colleague or I forgot to tune down our loudspeaker, we notice immediately and we will tune them down straight away. You are 2 in the cockpit with 2 headsets so you already have redundancy.
Personnaly if my FO agrees, I ask headset off as soon as pratical especially on the A321 which is a very quiet cockpit usually around 15/20000 feet and put it back on about the same altitude. It’s doable to do the flight without headset on the A320 series. Done it before. A bit noisy during climb on A319 tho. If some people think this cockpit is very noisy they should fly an Islander. xD

9 points

I’m with Penko on this. In fact I seem to recall an incident I read about where a crew did exactly that. Might have been a CHIRP (UK) report. Turned off the volume and forgot about it. I’m pretty certain it’s not “wave interference” because one wouldn’t expect to see a time delay between the headphones and the speaker. However, I’m niether a fan of the loudspeaker being set too high either. It’s only my personal opinion but I see the loudspeaker as a backup in the way that PENKO is suggesting. We might all say we couldn’t make a simple error like that but maybe on a four sector day or at 30W in the middle of the night.....

Forgetting to put the volume loudspeaker up when removing the headset is like forgetting to put your socks before your shoes. I’m not saying it can’t happen but it’s unlikely. It’s like an automatism for me. When we agree to remove the headsets, it’s loudspeaker on first and only then headset off. In the airspace I fly, there is always someone talking every 10 seconds. So in case there is an usual silence, I would know pretty fast something is wrong. xD I don’t recall being on that situation. And yes I do forget and do mistakes like any other pilots. But this one is easily avoidable with discipline.

Murphy’s law?

I’m no super pilot but I don’t know any case that forgetting the loudspeaker had resulted in a loss of communication.
Surely in the past I got distracted and simply did the mistake to first remove my headset and did not turn up the loudspeaker volume up immediately. But within few seconds you would realise your forget to level up the volume as unless it’s not your day and your FO also forgot his loudspeaker, you should realise the sound is coming only on one side but mainly due to the fact than flying into chinese airspace it’s pratically impossible not to have more than 10/20 seconds of radio silence.

Edit: I’m using Telex 850 ANR headset. I guess using ANR headset make the interference worst compare to a conventional headset. Just a guess tho.

Who the devil goes around on speakers and headsets all day? That's pretty annoying, unless the headset volume is off in an ANR headset. Like someone else said, at the companies I've flown, pointing it out is sufficient to get the other person to turn off the speaker.

If somebody flew around with the speaker on all the time, I'd ask if he listens to music via his ipod headphone and speaker simultaneously.

I hope you lot don’t fly the A350, turn it down too far and you get a MEMO “CAPT/FO SPEAKER LOW” ....so with headsets on we can only turn it down so far.....

We manage ok.

We leave the PA volume up on ACP 3 for the CVR, not 1/2. That's hilarious. I fly with a few guys who fly around listening to PA's all day. With the amount of PA's we make, I don't see how they have time to listen to the radio.

You should worry more about the toilet door handle, or the remote control in your hotel room. :)

I mean there isn’t too much of a health risk with headsets - you share all that dead skin sweat etc. at home with your family.

You can clean the aircraft controls and buttons with a sanitising wet wipe, (but who ever cleans the overhead panel controls or the cockpit door handle?), and can do the same with the company headset.

As far as speakers are concerned, with two audio sources, there is always the possibility of cancellation or amplifying effects, and if there is a time delay between the two sources, there could be echo effects ranging from a change of perceived ambiance, owing to a very short delay, or if digital processing is involved then there could be a longer delay which might affect the intelligibility. I personally have never suffered, but I do sometimes accidentally leave my speaker on, and as soon as the other pilot asks, I apologise and turn it off.

Out of interest, when you used the aircraft headsets did you always wipe them clean before use or just wear them as they were?

I haven’t had a cold for at least three years, probably more.