Head wear..or the lack of it !

[Brian]

Apparently its becoming a bit more commom place these days for some pilots electing NOTto wear a helmet for a number of reasons, one is that a helmet gets very hot in summer. In a recent accident a pilot suffered severe head trauma by something in the cockpit imacting the back of the head. Now while its not know if the head trauma was the reason for death, its not hard to see that it most certainly would not have helped!! In any impact with terrain etc the possibility of the head hitting / getting hit is farily high.

[Tsemler]

As someone that has been struck by a rotorblade albeit only doing about 30 - 40 rpm i was glad i was wearing a helmet!!! Ya don"t see people on touring motorbikes not wearing helmets during summer

[MadMuz]

Helmits in gyros are like seatbelts in cars.... sometimes they help, sometimes they dont. When seatbelts were just being forced to be worn in cars back in the early 70"s my aunty was sitting in her car at an intersection, a morris minor which didnt have seat belts. A truck turned left

[mad max]

One of my comrades pranged an open frame machine once and a piece of the Warp drive prop struck the back of his helmet and knocked a small hole in it. Could of been his brain. I agree with the light high tech helmet idea for inside a cabin. Still searching for two that one could fit the mic. and speakers to. Got to be good enough the prevent getting knocked out but light enough to prevent breaking a neck.

[MadMuz]

It is all about Murphy"s lawMax (No, not Greg Murphey)If yow wear a helmit ,probably nothing will ever happen..... if you dont, you will probably cop a seagull in the chops when you least expect it

[birdy]

While I"v got Nuthn in my cranium worth protecting, the outside would get very burned/ frozen if I never wared a skid lid.Besides, radios don"t work too good without them.I"v dun a few hours in the gyro where I had to go lidless ( for reasons you don"t need to know) but I still wared a baly.

[mad max]

Don"t think Birdy would be likely to hit a seagull ;D I tried doing a circuit in my birthday suit once all in the name of science (bit bored at the time) Some bloke filmed it and showed it to his family in England. They probably thought it was club initiation.

[MadMuz]

Lucky you didnt have to do an out landing.... I could just see it now..... the only place you could land safely was at the local convent

[MadMuz]

I checked out Nolan helmits on the net.... they have some great looking flip front (whole front opens) ones already made for intercoms

[Colinm-m22]

I have purchased two Flycom helmets and the microphones and internal earphones are phenomenal! The visors are tinted at the top and clear at the bottom, I have also stuck a bifocal lens on the visor to read the QNH and fine print on IPad! They are really good and I can hear my passenger whisper in the back at 5800 rpm! The audio input and muting abilities are state of the art. They also have breathing holes on the forehead and are the most ergonomical helmet/headsets I have ever flown with. The visors are bolted to the helmets and dont just clipped on, so one can fly with the visor in the up position very safely. I have only tried flying with a cap and headset once but the cap blew off and went through the prop, it’s still to be found Vuplex visor cleaner are perfect for cleaing the windshield and helmet visors and the more you apply the substance the easier it is to clean it next time.

[mad max]

I watched another comrade once look up at his rotor head in an open air gyro (after I told him not to while wearing a visor) and the visor shot up through the blades and landed 200 ft. below in the spinafex not even scratched. I once put my peak hat through the prop. (after the helmet flew off and I caught it) It was my favourite hat so I landed (Which I had to do anyway) and there was no sign of the hat. Must of been shredded.

[gyroo]

Hi guys,a gentle reminder to all that our popular and esteemed colleague and father of a young family 44-year old Dean Driscoll on 6 May 2012 lost his life at Bollon Queensland in a gyro crash due to a combination of circumstances which included (a) that he had a Moto-cross peak shield (see photo) fitted to his helmet in lieu of the usual visor and visor cover, and (b) that the round clasp on the helmet neck strap was noticeably loose. The available evidence strongly suggested that the helmet had been pulled off Dean"s head because the oncoming airflow had caught under the large Motocross peak pivoting the helmet upward, and the loose neck clasp let go. The helmet then went into the prop causing it to shed a blade and the resulting vibrations led to loss of control at extremely low level.The moral of this sad story is make damn sure that the helmet retention neckstrap and clasps are in first class order. Also, the use of those Moto-cross peak shields in an open frame or podded machine needs to be really seriously questioned. The circumstances of Dean Driscoll"s accident were perhaps fairly unique, but Max"s anecdotes (well, 2 of them, above) show that all sorts of seemingly incredible things can happen.Dean Driscoll was also a helicopter pilot and owner of a Robinson R22, and conventional aviation helmets retrofitted with Moto-cross peak shields are quite common in helicopter mustering throughout northern Australia, allowing the wearer to simply dip their head to instantly regain at least some vision in bad sun glare situations without having to fiddle with visors and so forth.While it can be postulated that had Mr Driscoll not been wearing a helmet, then possibly he might not have crashed, it is nevertheless the clear policy and very strongly recommended by ASRA that a serviceable functional helmet be worn in all cases for open-framers or podded gyros where the upper part of the occupants" bodies are exposed and the use of helmets is even strongly encouraged in 2 seat cabin gyros (often flown with headsets only). The justification for using a helmet in a cabin gyro is obviously that in a bad accident the cabin is likely to distort or deform badly and therefore the cabin structure itself is likely to whack an unprotected head badly.ASRA does NOT require helmets to have an Australian standards certification because most aviation helmets aren"t imported in sufficient quantities to go through the certification process mandatory for - for instance - motor cycle helmets riden on Australian public roads. That being said, ASRA strongly recommends against buying any old helmet from the $2 shop. Common sense applies. Second-hand is OK, as long as the lining and retention straps and clasps or buckles are in first class order, or have been replaced. Also, if the helmet has been worn in a previous accident and incident and received a bad whack (saving your head in the process), think about outright replacement with a new one (rather than attempting a repair).Common sense - I suggest - makes it obvious that a helmet should always be worn on any open frame machine. Even in the case of a high speed inevitably fatal impact it would still be thoughtful to have a helmet so that the Coroner"s assistants would have your pulverized head still contained in a fairly tidy manner.Mark ReganMelbourneTech Manager

[MadMuz]

That was a very sad accident Mark, I know how powerful the wind is at any decent speed, I decided one day to look up at my rotor head, just out of interest.... my helmet stayed on, but my head nearly came off .... man, there was some force

[Brian]

I use that "100 mph

[WEST OZ FLYER]

it is nevertheless the clear policy Mark is that a written rule of ASRA? I have been asking this question to everyone that I speak to and haven"t got a conclusive answer. I can"t seem to find it in the ops manual. I don"t mean to be tool about it, just would like to know the answer. Cheers Matthew