The Fly Baby Goes IPOD

A couple of years back, I posted about adapting a surplus Russian flying
helmet for use in my Fly Baby:

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/stories/helmet.HTM

I actually didn't wear it all that much...the noise attenuation wasn't
as good as my regular helmet with my Flightcomm ANR headset, and it was
a bit too tight and too uncomfortable.

This fall, I started having some trouble with my ANR headset and decided
to send it in for repair. I tried to pick a time period with a lot of
bad weather forecast.

Unfortunately, last weekend turned out pretty nice. I decided to try
out the Russian headset again.

It didn't work worth beans. The speakers had deteriorated or something,
and it was very difficult to understand anything. Transmissions with
high audio power weren't too bad, but most everything else was unreadable.

Plus, the helmet itself seemed impossibly uncomfortable. I had
remembered flying an hour with it back when I converted the headset, and
it wasn't too bad, but it was way, way too tight now.

As far as the speaker problems, I had a sudden brainstorm: What about
IPOD-like in-the-ear headphones... what they call "ear buds"?

On the way home from the airport, I swung by a discount store and bought
a $20 set of ear buds. At home, I ripped the old speakers out of the
headset, then cut off the plug of the ear buds to solder them to the
wires under the nylon helmet lining.

Bad idea. The wires on the headset are very fine, and I couldn't get
enough metal to feel comfortable soldering it.

The nylon headset liner has a sort of pouch for the wires around the
nape of the neck. I bought another set of ear buds and a 1/8" jack from
Radio Shack. A test fit showed that I couldn't feel the jack or plug
when they were in the pouch, so I soldered the contacts for the jack to
the existing headset wires, plugged the ear buds into it, and closed it
back up. I left enough wire for the ear buds so they'll dangle slightly
below the headset when it's picked up.

(I should mention that the headphone cord on the headsets retained the
matching transformer I had attached to allow use of 8 ohm headsets in an
aviation circuit. I also retained the Flightcomm boom microphone of the
original installation.)

The next step was to try to add a bit more passive attenuation to the
ear cups of the helmet. Taking the speakers out just left a void under
the hard-rubber external shell. Matt Michael suggested using pieces of
Temperfoam, so I carved off a couple of scraps and fitted them in.

The last step was to try to get the darn thing more comfortable. It
really wasn't the helmet's fault; it was sold as a collectible and was
probably a medium or even a small. Originally, I had removed most of
the wool-pile lining to get a bit more room, but some of the lining
still was caught under the front seam of the headset. Where,
coincidentally, I was now feeling most of the pressure.

So I undid the stitching and got rid of the rest of the thick lining. I
clamped the front of the leather helmet to a vise and used the vise to
stretch it out as much as I dared.

Today, I had a change to try it. To don the headset, I slid it down
most of the way over my head. Then I reached up, grabbed each of the
dangling ear buds in turn, and inserted them into my ears. Then the
helmet came down the rest of the way. Before buckling the chin strap, I
snaked a finger up under the cups and tried to re-seat the ear buds better.

In flight...it worked fantastic. I was able to run the volume control a
bit lower than I usually do with my ANR headset. The Passive
attenuation of the headset is pretty good now, since there's nothing
sticking out into the breeze other than a little streamlined rubber bump
on each side (I think a lot of the noise I get with the other headset is
turbulence on the headset itself). Plus, the ear buds themselves act as
ear plugs...while delivering the signal more directly to my ear drum.

I did find the in-the-ear plugs a bit more uncomfortable, and there
seemed to be a bit of "popping" when my jaw moved as I spoke on the radio.

All-in-all, though, I thought it worked darned nicely.

Ron Wanttaja

"Ron Wanttaja" wrote in message
news |

I hope to see the headset in the photo, the next time you take her super
sonic!

Ron Wanttaja wrote:
A couple of years back, I posted about adapting a surplus Russian flying
helmet for use in my Fly Baby:

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/stories/helmet.HTM

I actually didn't wear it all that much...the noise attenuation wasn't
as good as my regular helmet with my Flightcomm ANR headset, and it was
a bit too tight and too uncomfortable.

This fall, I started having some trouble with my ANR headset and decided
to send it in for repair. I tried to pick a time period with a lot of
bad weather forecast.

Unfortunately, last weekend turned out pretty nice. I decided to try
out the Russian headset again.

It didn't work worth beans. The speakers had deteriorated or something,
and it was very difficult to understand anything. Transmissions with
high audio power weren't too bad, but most everything else was unreadable.

Plus, the helmet itself seemed impossibly uncomfortable. I had
remembered flying an hour with it back when I converted the headset, and
it wasn't too bad, but it was way, way too tight now.

As far as the speaker problems, I had a sudden brainstorm: What about
IPOD-like in-the-ear headphones... what they call "ear buds"?

On the way home from the airport, I swung by a discount store and bought
a $20 set of ear buds. At home, I ripped the old speakers out of the
headset, then cut off the plug of the ear buds to solder them to the
wires under the nylon helmet lining.

Bad idea. The wires on the headset are very fine, and I couldn't get
enough metal to feel comfortable soldering it.

The nylon headset liner has a sort of pouch for the wires around the
nape of the neck. I bought another set of ear buds and a 1/8" jack from
Radio Shack. A test fit showed that I couldn't feel the jack or plug
when they were in the pouch, so I soldered the contacts for the jack to
the existing headset wires, plugged the ear buds into it, and closed it
back up. I left enough wire for the ear buds so they'll dangle slightly
below the headset when it's picked up.

(I should mention that the headphone cord on the headsets retained the
matching transformer I had attached to allow use of 8 ohm headsets in an
aviation circuit. I also retained the Flightcomm boom microphone of the
original installation.)

The next step was to try to add a bit more passive attenuation to the
ear cups of the helmet. Taking the speakers out just left a void under
the hard-rubber external shell. Matt Michael suggested using pieces of
Temperfoam, so I carved off a couple of scraps and fitted them in.

The last step was to try to get the darn thing more comfortable. It
really wasn't the helmet's fault; it was sold as a collectible and was
probably a medium or even a small. Originally, I had removed most of
the wool-pile lining to get a bit more room, but some of the lining
still was caught under the front seam of the headset. Where,
coincidentally, I was now feeling most of the pressure.

So I undid the stitching and got rid of the rest of the thick lining. I
clamped the front of the leather helmet to a vise and used the vise to
stretch it out as much as I dared.

Today, I had a change to try it. To don the headset, I slid it down
most of the way over my head. Then I reached up, grabbed each of the
dangling ear buds in turn, and inserted them into my ears. Then the
helmet came down the rest of the way. Before buckling the chin strap, I
snaked a finger up under the cups and tried to re-seat the ear buds better.

In flight...it worked fantastic. I was able to run the volume control a
bit lower than I usually do with my ANR headset. The Passive
attenuation of the headset is pretty good now, since there's nothing
sticking out into the breeze other than a little streamlined rubber bump
on each side (I think a lot of the noise I get with the other headset is
turbulence on the headset itself). Plus, the ear buds themselves act as
ear plugs...while delivering the signal more directly to my ear drum.

I did find the in-the-ear plugs a bit more uncomfortable, and there
seemed to be a bit of "popping" when my jaw moved as I spoke on the radio.

All-in-all, though, I thought it worked darned nicely.

Ron Wanttaja

Others' efforts (there are other threads on the same subject on the same
forum):

http://www.vansairforce.com/communit...ad.php?t=20917

"Ron Wanttaja" wrote

I did find the in-the-ear plugs a bit more uncomfortable, and there seemed
to be a bit of "popping" when my jaw moved as I spoke on the radio.

All-in-all, though, I thought it worked darned nicely.

Phillips makes an in the ear ANR earphone set that is very inexpensive. Of
course, for very inexpensive, the ANR is not all that much of an
improvement, but does add a bit of boost in volume of the high and low
frequencies, I believe.

They come with three different sized tips, and one will be very comfortable,
in my experience. The passive noise dampening is excellent.

These things are so comfortable, that I can sleep overnight with them, and
not have sore ears in the morning.

They might be worth a try, if the comfort level and performance is still not
up to what you were expecting, or if others want to try and go this route.
--
Jim in NC