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Are helmets just something fashionable?


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Do civilian helicopter pilots doing non-dangerous missions really need them?

 

 

I should think modern aircraft should be equipped with airbag protection as modern cars are for crash protection as well as seat belts and harnesses.

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Do civilian helicopter pilots doing non-dangerous missions really need them?

 

 

 

Nobody plans to have an accident, and it doesn't matter how expensive the aircraft is/was.

 

For the pilot, a helicopter crash is like being in a big industrial clothes dryer with a running lawn mower when somebody rolls everything down hill. After the first impact (and airbags collapse pretty quickly), it's your equipment and preparation that determines if you're gonna unhook and run away.

 

f there's anything inside the aircraft that I want to protect, it's my head.

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It only becomes a fashion statement when your grey and red brain dribbles onto your fashionably-designed bib-and-brace flying suit (with holster and matching handbag, high heels optional).

 

Airbags? They would need to be changed to deflate a lot slower, because aircraft crashes take a bit longer to happen after the first bump - look at some where the tail has hit something, and see how long it takes to finally stop moving.

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Some helicopters and some aircraft currently employ airframe airbags, but that doesn't replace the need for a helmet. Helmets provide crash protection, but also provide protection in flight in violent conditions such as turbulence; if you've ever had your head bounced off the canopy or window or something else in the cockpit, you'll understand. Helmets provide protection against flash burns, and are communication devices, as well as mounting points for night vision and other devices.

 

Helmets are a good investment, and for some types of flying, a requirement.

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It’s good to have dreams. However, creating your dreams in cyberspace is not reality……

 

 

I wear a helmet simply because it’s what my employer requires. Same with my nomex flight suit uniform. Neither is a fashion statement. Some folks in my organization quantify these items as “safety equipment” but none; I say again, none of these individuals are aviation safety experts. They simply believe the hype and choose to follow the crowd……. “They” will always be safe……

 

 

In cyberspace, I don’t need a helmet or nomex. In cyberspace, I can crash and nothing will happen. In cyberspace, I can do anything…….. That is, up until reality kicks in and I have to go to work……

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Are you saying that nomex isn't safety equipment or doesn't provide a layer of safety? What about the helmet?

 

I was in the camp that thought nomex flight suits may actually contribute to an unsafe environment, at one point. Especially when they're thrown on over clothing during a rapid dispatch. The heat and discomfort can be considerable at times. Same for the leather boots; I prefer sneakers. However, in certain of my flying, I'm required to wear leather boots, nomex gloves, helmet, nomex flight suit, etc.

 

I expressed that sentiment to a co-worker some years ago who turned around and shared a video by a Captain in the US Army; he was badly burned in Vietnam after a UH-1 crash, when he returned to the helicopter to search for someone. He made the video to encourage others to properly wear their gear, including helmet, gloves, boots, and flight suit. His face was melted as were his arms where his sleeves were rolled up. His neck was badly burned where he didn't put his collar up. Everywhere that his flight suit, helmet, gloves, and boots covered his skin, he wasn't burned, or scarred, or melted. It was dramatic, particularly to hear directly from someone who had a very valid reason to stand behind his words.

 

I put an airplane down on a fire some years ago after an engine failure, and I was very glad to have a helmet and flight suit on. I don't have a degree in safety, though I've been the company safety officer before. I'm not a safety expert. I'm quite sure that my equipment qualifies as safety equipment.

 

I worked for a company that approved a new fabric flight jacket for crews; the vendor was flight suits unlimited (now Gibson and Barnes). The jackets were about forty bucks, as I recall; I paid about two seventy for mine, because I ordered it in all nomex. The fabric looked the same, and the company had no issues with the jacket, but it was a lot more flame resistant than what the company had originally approved. It was worth it to me, and while a uniform item, for me it was also safety equipment. (I have put out cockpit fires twice using a nomex flight jacket, among other uses, which is good enough reason to me to have one, to say nothing of any other potential use.

 

In the aircraft I'm flying at the moment, the helmet is required equipment, not only by the government, but by the aircraft manufacturer; it's a limitation in the flight manual, and it's placarded in the cockpit.

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Although aircraft accidents are much different than car accidents, the minor inconvenience of wearing a helmet may prevent me from crushing my skull in. I can't count how many massive head injuries I've dealt with in working traffic crashes where the driver whacking their head was the only injury they had.

Not all aircraft crashes result in a ball of fire.

I've worn a flight suit everyday for about the past 8 years. I've never experienced the discomfort or inconvenience people talk about. In my case it's "safety equipment" as well as an agency uniform. So I guess I look at it that I could be flying around in a traditional looking 100%polyester patrol cop uinform with a metal badge and shiny pins. I'd welcome the flight suit any day.

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There's a very good video the Army puts out about a couple of AH-64 pilots who were in the FARP when their aircraft caught fire. In the places where the uniform was properly worn you could see a significant reduction in the severity of their burns, and in some areas no burns at all. The places they had tucked in their pants or didn't have covered were a different story. They were fully engulfed do to a nozzle malfunction that sprayed fuel over their cockpit and engines.

 

None of this stuff is crash proof but it will increase your chance of survival by widening the envelope of things your body can endure.

 

Whatever you choose to wear, avoid polyester.

Edited by SBuzzkill
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In EMS, I fly a lot of cyclists who are alive because of helmets. I also fly a lot of people who aren't all that alive because they DIDN'T have head protection.

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Some folks in my organization quantify these items as “safety equipment” but none; I say again, none of these individuals are aviation safety experts. They simply believe the hype and choose to follow the crowd……. “They” will always be safe……

 

 

This statement (purposely) does not infer what my opinion is. My opinion is just that, my opinion. And, on this topic, it doesn’t matter. Specifically, I’m told to wear this equipment by managers who are not involved in aviation whatsoever. They believe what they believe because it’s what the operation down the street believes and, because it’s what they see on TV and in magazines. In reality, it looks “cool” to them. Conversely, I’ve been flying helicopters for 23 years and yet, they don’t feel it’s necessary to ask me for my opinion…..

 

If you think a helmet can provide you with a level of protection, then you should probably wear one. If you don’t, then don’t. Same with nomex. That is, if you have the choice…..

 

To the OP, on your sim or game, you can dress your pilot character however you want. If you feel you may bump you head while playing, then maybe you should wear a helmet. Likewise, if your console is in the garage next to the lawnmower gas can and, you smoke, then you should probably wear nomex……

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There's a very good video the Army puts out about a couple of AH-64 pilots who were in the FARP when their aircraft caught fire. In the places where the uniform was properly worn you could see a significant reduction in the severity of their burns, and in some areas no burns at all. The places they had tucked in their pants or didn't have covered were a different story. They were fully engulfed do to a nozzle malfunction that sprayed fuel over their cockpit and engines.

 

None of this stuff is crash proof but it will increase your chance of survival by widening the envelope of things your body can endure.

 

Whatever you choose to wear, avoid polyester.

 

I met the backseater from that aircraft, he has some serious burn scars but is still flying. I'd say it's better to wear the safety gear in the off chance that it may save your butt someday.

 

By the way, that mishap also changed the way Apaches refuel; we shut down the #2 engine during hot refuel but leave #1 on. The inlet for #2 is right above the fuel port.

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^^^^Probably the same supervisors who pass on the myth that a jet ranger or a 500 costs "thousands of dollars per hour to operate" so they won't call us to come out and assist because they believe they are single handedly saving the agency money.

Edited by Flying Pig
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Strange subject...

 

I wore a helmet for many, many years, poking around waves herding tuna, and then L.E. poking around mountains hunting bad guys, weed, and stolen cars. And then EMS poking around picking up warm bodies off cold, hard roads. Frequently, motorcyclists who were macho, and who didn't bother with helmets. (I learned that it's actually hard to be macho when you're slurring your speech, and being pushed around in a wheelchair, with a severe case of brain damage.)

 

I got very comfortable wearing my helmet. It was like putting your pants on. You felt ridiculous without it. Exposed, like. Those pink Long Johns... undignified.

 

So then, I ended up in the Gulf of Mexico in 2004. Back then, nobody wore helmets. Innocently, I asked the Area Manager, (one tier below next-to-God) if It was okay for me to wear my helmet. I remember we were in the crew room at the old Cameron base. The old one, before it got washed away in hurricane (duh! can't remember) and replaced by the present wooden Robinson Crusoe fort-palisade. I asked very innocently, and the effect was...

 

startling.

 

Everybody looked at me. Conversations stopped. Expressions froze. Say, what?

 

The Area Manager (retired, now, I wonder if he ever got over me) seemed quite nonplussed. He sort of opened and closed his mouth a few times. Then he asked why I wanted to wear a helmet. It was my turn to be speechless. Why did I want to wear a helmet? It seemed an extraordinary question. Why the F@#k do you THINK I want to wear a helmet?? As a fashion statement? So I could stick a sticker on it? "NO FEAR", maybe? I stammered something weakly about being used to it. There were incredulous looks. (What did the new guy just ask for? To wear his HELMET?? WHO IS THIS GUY??)

The upshot was that I was told, no, junior, you can NOT wear your helmet. Verboten. Nein. Nichts. Fat chance. No way, Josay...

 

The reason? That stuck in my mind. The reason?

 

"You might scare the passengers".

 

Oh.

 

:unsure:

 

Now, many years later, after a well publicized traumatic S76 accident, and at the insistence of some very important (very important) honorable customers, some two crew ships, DO have their pilots wear helmets. At the insistence of the customer. So now the top-of-the-line flag ships, two crew, fully coupled what-you-call-it fourteen axis spatial gyroscopic tri-attitude rubber duck S-92's and all that... THEY wear helmets. The lower caste, the single pilot, single engine, limited brain cell, rickshaw pullers, plying their daily trek stepping carefully around the Holy Cow Poops... THEY do NOT wear helmets.

 

"Because we don't want to scare the customers."

 

Hmmm.... Smile sweetly, think of the pay check, and carry on, Moriarty!

 

:huh:

Edited by Francis Meyrick
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Something else worth considering is that a helmet provides protection against a bird strike. Many people see a helmet as a means of surviving a crash; it's also a a way of preventing one. It doesn't take much for a bird to penetrate the windscreen. Even if the pilot isn't knocked out, a face injury could seriously impair their ability to fly the aircraft.

 

As others have mentioned, slamming ones head into the frame during severe turbulence is another concern.

 

In Hawaii, there are birds and turbulence galore. My personal opinion is that pilots should wear helmets in this environment.

 

Unfortunately, all the tour companies seem to share the belief that it will "scare the passengers". Funny how hypocritical our industry can be. Safety first, right?

 

It's also worth mentioning that helmets with a CEP kit provide phenomenal hearing protection. Far quieter than any passive or active noise reduction headset.

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The upshot was that I was told, no, junior, you can NOT wear your helmet. Verboten. Nein. Nichts. Fat chance. No way, Josay...

 

 

 

My first job was ag, and I arrived on the job with my helmet. I was strapping in on day one when the owner's son happened by. He was a pilot there, too. He asked what I had in my hands. I said "I believe it's a crash helmet."

 

"You aren't planning on crashing our aircraft are you?" He asked.

 

"No."

 

"Give me the helmet."

 

That was it for the helmet on that job.

 

We war WWII era headsets that provided no noise attenuation, and had some kind of leather or cloth covering a fiberglass insulation looking material in the ear pads...which were hard as a rock, except where they were falling apart and losing the fiberglass. Hard to hear on them, worse than nothing, and we didn't have aircraft radios either...just a CB.

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I don't see a reason not to wear one if you have one, just an added safety measure. I know a pilot that went down and would without a doubt be dead if he wasn't wearing his helmet, his helmet cracked in the crash......I can only imagine what that impact would have done to a bare skull

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In fairness to employers...

 

Bottom line...

 

Balance sheet...

 

Bean Counters...

 

Bean Masters counting humble Bean Counters...

 

you know, I can see the headaches and cost factor.

Helmets like we wear in EMS are $$$$ expensive. The maintenance thereof... expensive. The logistics... the change of mental perspective...

 

But... how much does ONE stupid CRASH cost? ONE Multi Million Dollar law suit? Times five passengers? How many scare-the-passenger helmets ("NO FEAR") could you have bought with the $$$$ involved in ONE Great White Shark feeding frenzy? (Yes, I speak of the genetic cousin of said species, the Great Greedy Attorney Shark.)

 

Have you SEEN (I shudder at the recollection) the many photos of what that blessed bird will DO to an innocent helicopter, quietly bumbling along, peacefully, minding its own business at a sedate one-hunnered-an'-thirty knots?? Awe-some... :wacko:

 

I've seen 'em where it looked like the choppah (airplane/eggbeater/sexy ass killing machine, etc, etc - see another discussion on this august forum) afterwards looked like it had been downed by a SAM. Windscreens smashed, Fairings obliterated, landing lights dangling precariously by half a wire and two stubborn rivets... Seeing is believing, but the destructive forces of an errant bird (say, what? Errant? They were there long before the egg beaters) has to be seen up close to be truly appreciated for the unscheduled structural modification it represents.

 

As I shut my eyes, in a quiet reverie, (not unusual) (I'm a dreamer) I can think back to a number of "HolyJehosophat" moments where I wished (for a moment) that I HAD maybe considered that librarian job.

 

I was minding my own business one day, over the Gulf of Mexico, just leaving 3,000 feet to commence the descent to an Oil platform. Happy I was. Ho-hum. All of a sudden...

 

Seagull at eleven o'clock high.

Seagull at twelve o'clock high.

Seagull at one o'clock high.

Seagull at two o'clock high...

 

And of course... they dived. But no straight dive. An erratic, wildly swooping left-right-left seagull emergency descent.

I jinked past one. Past another one. My mouth opened... my eyes opened even wider...

 

KA-BOOM - SPLAT! :blink:

 

Right in the pilot's windscreen. Ka-dunk!

 

Giving the fact that I was motoring fortissimo, I'm awesomely impressed with the Bell design engineers, because my windscreen HELD. Exploded Seagull (blood, guts and feathers) all over the place, ice cool laconic pilot (like hell) uttering strange high pitched yelping sounds, but no windscreen penetration. But the strangest thing is this: I swear... that perspex has a degree of elasticity designed in. I'm positive (you're welcome to laugh at me) (I'm not sensitive) (much)... I'm POSITIVE the windscreen BOWED INWARDS and then popped back out again. No, they told me, that can't happen. Well, maybe it can't happen, but I saw, in that split second, what I saw. The windscreen BOWED bloody well IN. And popped back out again.

 

And to further prove my point, afterwards there was a distinct area in the windscreen that remained slightly BOWED IN. The whole base came and looked at it. Every mechanic came and looked at it. It went all the way up the hokey-pokey maintenance command chain. The windscreen was VERY carefully inspected, and at length the decision was made to leave it in. I was fine with that decision, and for a week I carried around an interesting souvenir of my meet with good old Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. AFTER a week... you couldn't see it anymore. Somehow the perspex had resumed its original shape!

 

My point here is that the windscreen as designed by Mr Bell is capable of withstanding hell's bells on steroids. But the kinetic energy involved is ballistic. Had that windscreen succumbed (and I think it was tested to Olympic limits) I would have met Jonathan face-to-face. No helmet. Spectacles. Tinted...?

 

Now I'll add this: that was a Sea Gull. Have you ever met a stubborn PELICAN?? Never mind a whole gaggling line of stubborn Pelicans? Those critters, in their mind, are the biggest, baddest, meanest kids on the block. They've been around for tens of thousands of years, and they ain't budging for NOBODY. They just fly along, unswerving, and throw you this disgusted look:

 

"Hey, Big Noisy Bird! Get lost! Hump off...!"

 

And one of those porkeys through the windscreen...

 

I'd recommend a helmet. Without the "NO FEAR" sticker.

 

Or a librarian's job...

 

:o

Edited by Francis Meyrick
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We live in a free county. Wear a helmet if you want to. Don’t if you don’t….. If you do, that freedom extends to what you want to stick on your helmet. Me, I chose a sticker from my MX helmet manufacturer No Fear, who by the way manufactures gear which is regarded as "safety equipment". Furthermore, unless you frequent these types of circles, you’d never know it was a No Fear logo…..

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=no+fear+helmet&biw=1600&bih=766&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=epVgVaD1NcbIogSanIDYCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CB0QsAQ&dpr=1

 

IMHO, it’s a personal choice and better than that dumbass “fun meter”…….

Edited by Spike
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Ain’t that the truth… However, pilots are also free to leave anytime they wish. Therefore, at the beginning of the day, a smart pilot will always properly prefight the machine and insure the paperwork is correct and accurate. After that, the next thing should be update the resume and prepare to find another job……

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