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High altitude helmet


Hilton
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I am new on the forum so first of all; thank Gentlemen you for letting me onboard:-) I have some High altitude gear that are outside my range of knowledge so I would like to know some more about this USAF MA-2 helmet.

 

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Bluespicker

I am not at home so I don't have much of my technical library handy... Going from memory but I am certain others can fill in some blanks.

Early 1950s everyone wanted to fly high and that required a pressurized container for the aircrew. The US Navy and USAF were not on what could be termed friendly terms and in a rare moment of cooperation, an agreement of sorts was reached: the USAF would pursue partial pressure suit development based on the capstan suits and the US Navy would concentrate their efforts on full pressure suits. Not a big reach here: Dr. Henry of the USAF had been working on partial pressure suits for some time and Russell Colley at BF Goodrich was working with the Navy on full pressure suits. The USAF fielded its first generation partial pressure suits with a white K-1 Split shell helmet. The shell had a left and right half that attached to a frame and used an early faceplate that was sort of two flat surfaces joined in the center on a bit of an angle. Communications was AN/AIC-8, a carry over from WWII.

The early K-1 was replaced by 2nd version of the K-1 this time with a single, green fiberglass hard shell and a curved faceplate. Still AN/AIC-8 the faceplates had green oxygen mask style hoses.

The MA-2 had a white fiberglass shell and AN/AIC-10 communications which was the USAF standard adopted around 1952. The faceplate while the same size as the K-1s used a different inhalation valve and smaller pressure hose instead of the oxygen mask hose.

High altitude suits were technologically advanced and the government restricted much of the information on their development.

The USAF standardized an HGU-5/P, HGU-6/P and MB-5 all are variants of the K-1 and the MA-2. I think some of the helmets we as collectors identify as MA-2 may in fact be an HGU-5/P or HGU-6/P. My apologies but without my copy of the type designation sheets, I don't remember the differences between the various models.

In the 1960s, a kid reading comic books could send off for a "space" helmet and he would have received one of the USAF partial pressure suit helmets sans faceplate. Seems the faceplate presented a safety issue so the faceplates were removed form the helmets and broken up. SO we find a lot of these helmets without the faceplate.

Let someone else take it from here.

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Wow! Thank you for a very interesting, and fulfilling answer Bluespicker. Really enjoyed the fun-fact concerning kids that could order these through comic books:-) Once again; thank you.

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BlueBookGuy

Hello Hilton,

 

your's is such a fantastic find if considereing the condition!! and even a bit more than the MA-2 helmet (please permit me a slight O.T. :love: ) are those pressure gloves, once my forbidden dream if wanting them in decent shape and the complete pair... those S 612 model Gloves are incredibly "sexy", even when comparing with the more complex "full pressure" patterns.

To be more precise, they are OK for display together with the MA-2; will be wrong, should you someday find a MC-3A or MC-4A Partial Pressure suit to match with. In effect, due to a different "needle" connection shape and hoses' lenght they can couple only to a MC-1, or the very early variant of the MC-3.

 

p.s. I had been looking for them along many years just to complete my high-altitude USAF/NACA mannequinn pilot, but being unable to do I went after different aviators' patterns - eventually, in order to have at least one stratosferic guy I decided to assemble one Russian MiG-25 pilot wich is very interesting anyway, and in many aspects is decidedly similar but much easier to get here in Europe.

Greetings from Italy. Franco.

 

 

here the pattern immediately prior your S 612 Gloves, from a period b/w image. Somehow different in details, and a different crossing laces pattern.

These will be OK for a late MC-3A suit, but not for a MC-1:

 

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just for comparison: here the much simpler, almost crude Russian gloves (high-altitude) on my MiG pilot. Internal bladder-type too, but of the so-called "passive principle" - no outside hoses and connectors, not even the zippers!

 

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