2015-03-07 - Thinktank - Sasha Taylor - 56

A leather flying helmet, also known as an aviator hat, bomber hat or soft flight helmet, is a usually leather cap with large earflaps, a chin strap, and often a short bill that is commonly turned up at the front to show the lining (often fleece or

fur A fur is a soft, thick growth of hair that covers the skin of almost all mammals. It consists of a combination of oily guard hair on top and thick underfur beneath. The guard hair keeps moisture from reaching the skin; the underfur acts as an ...

). It is often worn with

goggles Goggles, or safety glasses, are forms of protective eyewear that usually enclose or protect the area surrounding the eye in order to prevent particulates, water or chemicals from striking the eyes. They are used in chemistry laboratories and ...

. It may be made of other materials, such as felt. With the rise of motorsport and aviation at the start of the 1900s, leather was becoming a popular choice for protective gear from the cold and the engine noise. It has many advantages that made it the ideal material for flying helmets: It is warm, durable, impermeable to liquids including water, flexible, and can be cut to curve around the head. It is wind proof and has the great advantage of not accumulating dust. It was also found that leather helmets offered some protection against fire. Manufacturers of early flying helmets were Alfred Dunhill Ltd. and

Gamages Gamages was a department store in Holborn, London. Trading between 1878 and 1972, it was particularly well known for its toy and hardware departments. History Gamages began life in 1878 in a rented watch repair shop and, after quickly becoming ...

of London, England, and Roold in Paris. Female pilots in the early part of the 1900s were able to wear the same design of protective clothing, including helmets, as their male counterparts. British engineers led by Charles Edmond Prince added

throat microphone A throat microphone, also called a laryngophone, is a type of contact microphone that absorbs vibrations directly from the wearer's throat by way of single or dual sensors worn against the neck. The sensors, called transducers, can pick up speec ...

s and

earphones Headphones are a pair of small loudspeaker drivers worn on or around the head over a user's ears. They are electroacoustic transducers, which convert an electrical signal to a corresponding sound. Headphones let a single user listen to an ...

into these helmets during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

for hands-free communications in the noisy and windy environment of aircraft

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, on the front part of an aircraft, spacecraft, or submersible, from which a pilot controls the vehicle. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the controls th ...

s.The National Archives
Fighting talk: First World War telecommunications
/ref>IEEE Spectrum
In World War I, British Biplanes Had Wireless Phones in the Cockpit
/ref> With the advent of closed-cockpit airplanes, head protection became less necessary (

Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, and author. On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight from New York (state), New York to Paris, a distance of . His aircra ...

still wore a leather helmet when he crossed the Atlantic in 1927, though his ''

Spirit of St. Louis The ''Spirit of St. Louis'' (formally the Ryan NYP, registration: N-X-211) is the custom-built, single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane that Charles Lindbergh flew on May 20–21, 1927, on the Charles Lindbergh#New York–Paris flight ...

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple wings. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

had a closed cockpit). In

air force An air force in the broadest sense is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviati ...

s, leather helmets were continuously used and developed. A well-known early leather flying helmet was the British Type B helmet, designed to accommodate earphones in pockets in the ear-flaps and easy to wear with

oxygen mask An oxygen mask is a mask that provides a method to transfer breathing gas, breathing oxygen gas from a storage tank to the lungs. Oxygen masks may cover only the nose and mouth (oral nasal mask) or the entire face (full-face mask). They may be ma ...

s and

. The

Imperial War Museum The Imperial War Museum (IWM), currently branded "Imperial War Museums", is a British national museum. It is headquartered in London, with five branches in England. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, it was intended to record the civ ...

has several examples used in both World Wars, with detailed descriptions. Detailed entry describing one of several IWM exhibits. See illustration above of a Type B flying helmet that belonged to

Spitfire The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. It was the only British fighter produced continuously throughout the ...

delivery pilot Helen Kerly, now in the

Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum Thinktank, Birmingham (formerly known as simply Thinktank) is a science museum in Birmingham, England. Opened in 2001, it is part of Birmingham Museums Trust and is located within the Millennium Point (Birmingham), Millennium Point complex on ...

. With the advent of

jet fighter Fighter aircraft (early on also ''pursuit aircraft'') are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the air ...

s after the Second World War, solid

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic polymers, synthetic or Semisynthesis, semisynthetic materials composed primarily of Polymer, polymers. Their defining characteristic, Plasticity (physics), plasticity, allows them to be Injection moulding ...

and, later,

carbon fiber Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers ( Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon comp ...

flight helmet A flight helmet, sometimes referred to as a "skull dome", "bone dome" or "foam dome", is a special type of helmet primarily worn by military aircrew. A flight helmet can provide:Aerospace International (magazine), March 2011, pages 26–29 * Im ...

s replaced leather helmets in the cockpits of aircraft. ''Aviator's hats'' continue in popularity as a fashion accessory and winter headwear.

Gallery

File:Jacket (AM 1998.10.1-6).jpg, File:98-5-F Helmet, Flight U.S. Army Air Corps, Type AN-H-15 (5123665598).jpg, File:VF-16 pilots aboard USS Lexington (CV-16) c Nov 1943.jpg,

References

{{commonscat, Soft flight helmets Aviation wear Helmets Leather clothing

Gallery

See also

References