Some of my flying mates have been complaining – LOUDLY – that something was wrong with my aircraft communication.
The electronic bits… not my mouth/English/verbiage bits…
I’ve been using a Quiet Technologies Halo in-ear headset for a number of years and really like it. There is no clamping pressure on one’s head, it is very light, and never any air/noise leaks when moving your head around.
However; the easiest change to make is the headset. So, I tried a pretty cheap headset that I have. Of course, those friends reported that things were MUCH better and that they could now understand me.
Ok, time to change headsets.
I’ve always wanted a noise canceling headset and decided that now was the time. The question – Bose or Lightspeed? A Bose would sure be nice – as would the high-end Lightspeed. But…. Being a cost-adverse sorta guy, I chose the Lightspeed Sierra headset.
The Sierra includes active noise canceling and Bluetooth for music/phone connection.
I quickly had it in hand and had a few flights under my belt.
I liked it!!
The noise canceling feature is a wonderful thing as is the ability to listen to music from my smart phone using Bluetooth.
I used this headset on my recent trip to the Idaho backcountry. After twenty hours of flying, it performed wonderfully and I am very happy with it.
There are a couple of negatives – at least for someone like me coming from an in-ear style headset – but these are true of any headset.
When flying ‘aggressively’ – as in air combat maneuvering – where you are spinning your head from side to side and all around to see your ‘target’, headsets seem to lose their “seal” and generally move around on your head a bit. With a noise canceling headset, this results in some extra noise as the headset attempts to compensate. This is not a big deal, just an observation – and probably a reason to wear a flight helmet!! 🙂
The other negative, a very minor one, is that the Bluetooth music is not very loud. It is just barely loud enough when I turn the volume to maximum on my Smartphone (which is the music source). This may be operator error and just something I haven’t figured out yet.
I sure wish it was as light and “unnoticed” as the Quiet Technologies in-ear headset but it isn’t too far off.
Nice!
I never listened to music when PIC, just one radio on 121.5 and the other on Center or whatever I was assigned to report on. Just not a multi-tasker like some people are.
I wear a Bose headset when taking Acrobatic lessons and they have a strap under my chin and other than a mike nailing my nose when I went -6 G, I have had no problems.
Ah yes – a very different type of flying. It is extremely rare for me to be talking to any form of ATC – even on long x-countries. Just no desire to go anywhere near those places. The chin strap is an idea for the yanking and banking times – thanks Tom!