LOOKS REALLY CAN KILL!

Tracing the development of high tech flying helmets for frontline pilots.

- Jon Lake

Flying wearing a helmet-mounted sight, a pilot only has to look at the target to cue the onboard weapons, while the data displayed in front of the pilot’s eyes frees the need to constantly look down at the cockpit displays, or even to look ahead through the Head Up Display (HUD).

The simple leather helmets worn by the earliest military aviators provided warmth in an open cockpit, but afforded little protection, and no extra functionality. Most aircrew also wore separate goggles, and sometimes a silk scarf over the unprotected lower part of the face. By the Second World War, helmets had gained oxygen masks and integral headphones. The arrival of the jet age saw the widespread introduction of ejection seats, and a hard outer shell was worn on the head, creating the first ‘bone dome’ or ‘brain bucket’. Goggles gave way to a visor, which was soon made integral with the helmet itself, but helmets themselves then changed very little until the 1970s and 1980s, though efforts were made to reduce their weight, to improve their comfort, and to provide better protection.

The development of night vision goggles in the 1960s and 1970s initially led to no major changes to helmet design. NVGs were typically mounted on the front of a helmet (usually replacing the visor) on a simple mount that allowed them to be swung down into the pilot’s sightline when required. Heavy batteries were sometimes Velcro’d to the back of the helmet to compensate for the additional weight at the front.