In a similar vein - I decided that since I was going to be going for my
commercial and then CFI rating after finishing my instrument (which I'm
presently, on) I would finally get one of those ANR headsets. The Bose is a
little to rich for the lint that's in my pocket, so I bought Lightspeed's
20L ANR headset from and eBay auction. I had been using the Lightspeed
passive headset - QFR Solo in the previous couple of years.

Anyway, I decided to 'christen' the headset by using it on one of my
instrument lessons. I put it on, without pressing the ANR 'on' switch, find
myself thinking "well, this is hardly anything",, then I realized I hadn't
turned on the ANR and pressed the button,,,, WOW,,, I was sold as I 'heard'
the sound and the engine roar drop to nearly nothing. I was such a happy
customer that I decided to get a Lightspeed 20 3G ANR headset and just
placed an order for one, a couple of days ago - it's supposed to arrive
around Monday. It has slightly better ANR with a cell phone input and an
automatic shutoff to protect the user from leaving the headset on inside the
headset bag. Looking forward to checking it out on my instrument lesson
next Thursday.

If there are any 'fence sitters" on getting the ANR headset I have to tell
ya to get one! The part that surprised me most was how fatiguing that
engine drone could be over a couple hours of instrument flying and how
refreshed I felt without that noise in the background during my instrument
lessons. The way I felt was like night and day.

By the way, if you want to use a good 'best price finder', I've become a big
fan of www.froogle.com . It's how I bought my latest headset - cost me $459
with FREE shipping via UPS. I'm pretty thrilled!!!

--
--
Good Flights!

Cecil E. Chapman, Jr.
PP-ASEL

"We who fly do so for the love of flying.
We are alive in the air with this miracle
that lies in our hands and beneath our feet"

- Cecil Day Lewis-

Check out my personal flying adventures: www.bayareapilot.com
"Wendy" wrote in message
...
I upgraded from my ridiculously cheap and poorly performing Flightline
headset to a DC H20-10 in preparation for my IFR training. I haven't
flown
with the DC's yet, but I will Saturday afternoon. My rationale here is
two-fold in that if I am in need of communicating, it would be a good
thing
to not only have some equipment I can reliably communicate with, but to
initiate my IFR training at an airport that is controlled (KDWH) rather
than
the admittedly fine uncontrolled airport I initially trained at (KCXO);
the
choice of which will obviously requires a level of conversation surpassing
simply shooting the breeze.

The FBO where I bought the headset- Mercury Flight Systems- seems to have
a
solid, while expensive, approach to the IFR experience. Rather than
making
loads of short XC's, they seem to stress longer ones;
Houston-Memphis-Houston being one example. Obviously, there will be a lot
of shorter excursions in the curriculum, but I have to say that the idea
of
flying under an instrument flight plan on major excursions is a
challenging
surely and valuable experience. These people seem honestly concerned with
making me a proficient IFR pilot rather than simply preparing me for the
checkride, which is the general impression I got from the operation where
I
obtained my initial certification. Any comments on this would be greatly
appreciated; being trained to pass the PTS is one thing, and thoroughly
understanding it is another, IMHO.

Apparently the training will be conducted in a C-172 upgraded to 180hp
with
a CS prop; since I have some (short) time in a Super Decathlon this won't
be
totally new to me. Instrument flying will be new, other than than my
brief
exposure required by the Private program, and I am looking forward to it.
This is a challenge I really want to master, and any suggestions you all
might have as concerns beginning training would be greatly appreciated.

Wendy