Flight Helmet for missions?

[TheSkyHornet]

I agree with most of that Darin, with the exception of public perception. While we do need to be cautious in how we present ourselves to the public as CAP members, safety and mission effectiveness should not take a back seat to public perception. That being said, I posted in the past that I don't think helmets are an essential for CAP flying. Most CAP flights really aren't any different than the maneuvers you would do as a private pilot in a Cessna 172 or 182, and I have yet to meet someone who wears a helmet flying a 172 as a PPL. If there was a significant safety improvement by wearing what is essentially a crash helmet, I could see the need, or at least, the encouragement for wearing one. But I don't think we really need them in most cases, and they may not be so safe for some of the older crews or the less-experience crews that might not have a lot of time wearing a helmet (between the change in weight, visibility, heat, head clearance in the cockpit).

By the way, folks, my question about the paint scheme for the helmet was purely satirical just to get a buzz.

[sarmed1]

.... If there was a significant safety improvement by wearing what is essentially a crash helmet...

Diminishing the chance of death from blunt force trauma to the head if you happen to crash, yes, kind of like the arguments for not wearing your seatbelts I hear.  I think the argument of GA vs CAP is in the case that generally there is/maybe a lot more going on in a SAR/DR flight than simply going from point A to point B,  so there is a greater risk of incident vs just a standard flight, so extra safety precautions may be indicated.

CAP in general seems to have an image problem on all kinds of fronts.... not just flying.  The same argument could be made for not wearing nomex, and survival vests and helmets.  Police/Sheriff crew gets out of their aircraft in said attire vs CAP crew in shorts and polo's  ".... hey who are those dingdongs, arey the lost, and searching the golf course?...."
In my flying job even though I am in the same aircraft as Bob's Tours,  no one bats an eye when we are at the FBO and  I have on nomex, a helmet and a survival vest, because they realize its not a tour aircraft....


MK

[NIN]

I agree with most of that Darin, with the exception of public perception. While we do need to be cautious in how we present ourselves to the public as CAP members, safety and mission effectiveness should not take a back seat to public perception. That being said, I posted in the past that I don't think helmets are an essential for CAP flying. Most CAP flights really aren't any different than the maneuvers you would do as a private pilot in a Cessna 172 or 182, and I have yet to meet someone who wears a helmet flying a 172 as a PPL. If there was a significant safety improvement by wearing what is essentially a crash helmet, I could see the need, or at least, the encouragement for wearing one. But I don't think we really need them in most cases, and they may not be so safe for some of the older crews or the less-experience crews that might not have a lot of time wearing a helmet (between the change in weight, visibility, heat, head clearance in the cockpit).

By the way, folks, my question about the paint scheme for the helmet was purely satirical just to get a buzz.

BTW, I don't disagree with you here. 

There may well be times when a helmet, survival vest, nomex, etc, are all indicated and can contribute to crew safety. In very specific flight regimes and environments.

Those times, however, are very few and far between for the VAST MAJORITY of the flying we're doing.

The perception issue I mentioned is not confined to CAP folks, when you think about it.

Its like the perception of volunteer fire fighters sometimes.   (every volunteer here is either going "Hey!" or cringing at what they know is coming)   You have 100 volunteer firefighters.  90 of them are awesome, do their jobs, fight fires, make the required number of runs a year to stay "current," etc.  Those other 10 are there for the "lights and sirens," don't make their annual runs, and generally are the primary example of the "10% that take 90% of your effort". 

A CAP guy I knew when I first moved to the Northeast called them "hoopies." Cuz they were always "hoopin' around with their light bars and wig wags and radios and pagers..."

(He was a full time fire fighter and ANG guy until they busted him for setting fires on a nearby Air Force Station, so take it with a little grain of salt)

But those other 90 volunteer firefighters are shaking their heads at their brothers going "You're making us look bad!" 

So what are those other 90 doing to curb the 10?

More to the point, its the same thing in CAP. The majority of our pilots and folks do just fine day in and day out. They represent the organization well, etc.

And then you get that percentage that are there to "play dress up" and not much more.  They barge into the pattern at the local airpatch without a radio call. They taxi to the pumps like they're the most important thing going that day.  They leave the tow bar attached when the try to crank.  They treat the line boy like a serf because they have to get to the debrief. Etc.

And these guys are the ones who leave behind the perception.

People have very long memories in General Aviation.  And when they're not flying, they're talking to each other.

So you have Elmer and his three buddies who spend Saturdays sitting in lawn chairs hangar flying under the wing of Elmer's Aeronca at the Wayfield Airport, watching the comings and goings at the airport, and "grading landings" like an LSO on the USS George Washington.  Elmer and his buddies know every single thing that has gone on at that airport over the last 20 years.  Either because they were there, or they've talked to people who were there.

And there was that one Saturday 5 years ago when Elmer and the boys were there when CAP showed up in their "fancy taxpayer provided red-white-and-blue 182" and: [pick one or more]

• Bombed into the pattern without so much as a "how do you do" on the CTAF;
• Bounced the landing a bit (well, it was a lot in Elmer and the boys' opinion!);
• Taxied off the runway way, way, way faster than anybody in their right mind should;
• Cut off old Ted who was taxiing to the self-serve pumps. (Never mind that old Ted was on the otherside of the field, still looking at his plane in the hangar, and contemplating taxiing over for gas);
• Dropped the self-serve nozzle on the ramp;
• "Pranced around" in their flight suits ("What they hell do you need that for? Showoffs! I ain't never needed no Nomex..");
• Cranked up with the chocks still in place;
• Took the active without a call on the CTAF, which clearly caused them to cut off old Ted who was on short final (Old Ted had actually departed 20 minutes before and didn't come back for another hour, but its all in the retelling, don't you know?)
• Climbed out at an awfully steep angle... (it wasn't, but Elmer and the boys, man, they're experts at what the current procedures look like, even though all their medicals expired during the Carter Administration).

So these things get repeated to others, over the years, and now every time a CAP plane shows up at the Wayfield Airport, someone who talked to Elmer and the boys says "Pffft, CAP.. Cowboys. You should hear what they did that one time.." 

That might have been a SAREX gas stop, it might have been a REDCAP mission, the boys might have been enroute home after a long sortie in the mountains, maybe Elmer didn't even have his airband radio tuned to the CTAF that one day. Who knows.

But one perceived slight ("I watched that fella put gas in the plane and he dropped the nozzle on the ground!"), even by accident, causes years upon years of "Yeah, whatever, CAP sucks.." at the Wayfield Airport. Now multiply that by 52 wings. Even if it happens only once in a wing every 10 years (which I'm sure it doesn't), that means like 5-6 times a year someplace around the country someone is doing something that gives us a black eye in the GA community.

This is getting a bit afield of the "helmets in the planes" discussion, but does speak to CAP's perception in GA.

I have a friend who runs an aviation business.  He's a super CAP guy, very moto, uses every opportunity to talk up CAP when he can.  He has found that as he traveled the country for his business, he got a lot of negative feedback in the GA community when he mentioned CAP.  To the point where he's stopped mentioning his affiliation with CAP altogether.

Back to the volunteer firefighters analogy: we, the 90%, need to do what we can to police ourselves, and definitely the 10%.

[lordmonar]

Back to the volunteer firefighters analogy: we, the 90%, need to do what we can to police ourselves, and definitely the 10%.

I agree.

But how does that relate to us letting the fear of "looking like a dork" keep us from doing what is right from a safety perspective?

NOW.....I'm not saying we need flight helmets (or Nomex, or Survival Vests) as required PPE.   I just don't think the cost/benefit is really there when you crunch the numbers.

But "public perception" should not be a factor in ORM and PPE decisions.



Sorry for the rant.

[RiverAux]

There is ALWAYS something that could technically be done to make any operation safer.  But, you've got to look at the cost vs the benefit.  If CAP is going to spend many hundreds of dollars per member for "safety" (there is zero chance that members would pony up that kind of cash for this), would flight helmets save the most lives or reduce the number of injuries the most?  I have a hard time believing that we couldn't come up with more efficient and effective ways to spend that money on safety. 

[NIN]

Back to the volunteer firefighters analogy: we, the 90%, need to do what we can to police ourselves, and definitely the 10%.

I agree.

But how does that relate to us letting the fear of "looking like a dork" keep us from doing what is right from a safety perspective?

NOW.....I'm not saying we need flight helmets (or Nomex, or Survival Vests) as required PPE.   I just don't think the cost/benefit is really there when you crunch the numbers.

But "public perception" should not be a factor in ORM and PPE decisions.

Sorry for the rant.

Hey, man, I ain't saying "don't wear a piece of PPE cuz someone might get the wrong idea."

I'm saying "do the appropriate thing at the appropriate time."

If wearing a flight helmet was beneficial to our ops in our flight regimes, we'd have them already.  the AF would have mandated and paid for them. Some safety guys would have ensured that.

[Flying Pig]

Doesn't matter if you know what you are doing as long as you look good doing it.