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Newbie Joined: Mar 10, 2005 Posts: 7 Status: Offline

I saw this article on the AF web site:

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123014013

I do not know if this question has been answered before, but why do fighter pilots have to put on earpieces? Is it because the radio is too loud or the cockpit too noisy? I have seen F-15 and F-16 pilots (including the Thunderbirds and demo team pilots) have earpieces on. Would any pilots out there have any comments? Thanks.

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Elite Joined: Jun 29, 2004 Posts: 961 Status: Offline

cockpit is very loud. Engine noise primarily. Most flyers retire with measurable hearing loss.

Elite Joined: May 17, 2005 Posts: 984 Status: Offline

I don't know why but I didn't think it was all that loud during my incentive ride. Maybe just too many years standing on the ground next to them. I always found cargo aircraft to be much noisier. Interestingly enough I was involved on the testing of these in the F-22 program. We found that the noise level was too high even at idle and plugs/muffs didn't allow the maintainers to hear the pilots. I tried to push these for all maintianers in the AF but as usual we get the short end of the stick.

Elite Joined: Jan 31, 2004 Posts: 1496 Status: Offline

jpujol wrote:

I saw this article on the AF web site:

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123014013

..."The new earplug system costs less than $600 per person and is made from deep ear canal impressions from the pilots. It has a speaker system similar to that used with an iPod, ultimately providing better clarity and 25 to 30 decibels of protection

Ewwww....getting a deep ear mold? Man, that's gotta feel funky! Just how deep are we talkin'. Can't be all the way to the eardrum I'd think. And will it fall to the life support troops to clean 'em?

Newbie Joined: Mar 10, 2005 Posts: 7 Status: Offline

Thank you very much for the replies.

I never thought fighter cockpits were that noisy. I thought the helmet would keep the noise down, but obviously that is not the case. I did not know that fighter pilots were victims of hearing loss due to cockpit noise and that earpieces were necessary to protect hearing.

Elite Joined: Jun 29, 2004 Posts: 961 Status: Offline

What?

Sorry...old joke.

Elite Joined: May 17, 2005 Posts: 984 Status: Offline

Just go over Mach 1.0 and all the sound is behind you and doesn't catch up to you until you stop - then wham! - it hits you all at once. Wink

LinkF16SimDude wrote:

jpujol wrote:

I saw this article on the AF web site:

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123014013

..."The new earplug system costs less than $600 per person and is made from deep ear canal impressions from the pilots. It has a speaker system similar to that used with an iPod, ultimately providing better clarity and 25 to 30 decibels of protection

Ewwww....getting a deep ear mold? Man, that's gotta feel funky! Just how deep are we talkin'. Can't be all the way to the eardrum I'd think. And will it fall to the life support troops to clean 'em?

I use something similar in the concert world (I do sound design and sound engineering). You go to an ear nose and throat doc, and they basically drop a semi-liquid wax into your ear. It doesn't go down to the eardrum, but it gets close enough. The whole purpose is to get an exact fit. This makes it so you get a pretty even decible cut around the frequency spectrum. There is a small level of lows and low mids that get sent through, but that has to do with the physics of sound waves.

hearing is incredibly important, and most people don't realize that by the time they are 25 they have done some considerable damage to their ears (average loss between age 5 and 25 is about 5%, from 25 to 35 is soemthing like 15%) through listening to loud radios and headphones and concerts and what not.

bottom line: once you lose it from long time exposure, it doesn't come back.

Newbie Joined: Sep 06, 2006 Posts: 1 Status: Offline

i heard that all fixed wing fast jet (supesonic) aircrafts are having average cockpit noise of 115 dB-130 dB. is it true?? this 115-130 dB will be there entire duration of flight? any standars are thare? because
as per MIL-1474D, allowable noise is 80dBA for 16 hours work and >115 dBA is forbidden...so how they are reducing the noise...through Helmet? or ear plug combined with good passive attenuation Helmets?

Rajavel

Elite Joined: Jun 29, 2004 Posts: 961 Status: Offline

swanee wrote:

I use something similar in the concert world (I do sound design and sound engineering). You go to an ear nose and throat doc, and they basically drop a semi-liquid wax into your ear. It doesn't go down to the eardrum, but it gets close enough. The whole purpose is to get an exact fit. This makes it so you get a pretty even decibel cut around the frequency spectrum. There is a small level of lows and low mids that get sent through, but that has to do with the physics of sound waves.

Problem is that these type of earplugs (until now apparently) were not good in cockpits. A guy worked for me and the standard foam plugs would not stay in for him, so he had some custom plugs made. They created a perfect seal...so much so that when he descended on his first ride with them the change in air pressure pushed them into his canals so hard he could not remove them...the flight doc said that this was the very reason they were not not approved. I'm guessing the reason the new, approved plugs are so expensive is that letting the air pass but not the sound is the toughie.

Roscoe wrote:

They created a perfect seal...so much so that when he descended on his first ride with them the change in air pressure pushed them into his canals so hard he could not remove them...

That doesn't sound like fun at all!

As far as how well the helmet itself filters out sound, it doesn't really do that much. Most of the noise is filtered out with the earplugs. When we flew T-37's in pilot training, they gave us the "mickey mouse ears" to put on to and from the jet in addition to earplugs because it was so loud and high-pitched. There's one reason I won't be sad to see that jet retire, altough it was a lot of fun to fly!

At any rate, I forgot to bring my earplugs once and flew without them. That was quite possibly one of the most painful flights I've ever had to endure. I haven't ever forgotten my earplugs since as a result. You don't realize just how loud it is in there until you don't have your hearing protection!

Rexxxx

Granted it's not a fighter, but on the -135 I wear both earplugs and a Bose noise cancelling headset. I hate the Bose headset, but it does help a ton it the noise level. Also I have found that I can actually hear the radios better when I am wearing plugs than when I am not. The -135 has no sound insulation at all really, and I am guessing that a fighter has even less, given that weight is such an issue, and most of the cockpit is canopy anyway.

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