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Brown Navy Flight Deck Helmet with microphone and earphones


Bob Hudson
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I think this is the first time I've ever found a flight deck helmet with electronics installed. This is a brown helmet, the color used by the low ranking plane captains, but it's also the color for the E-4 to E-6 air wing line Lead Petty Officers. This even has AMH1 marked on it: an E-6 Aviation Structural Mechanic - Hydraulics.

 

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Looks good. I have seen them before with DC and Astrocom headsets installed but haven't seen a Roanwell like that or with a M-101 mic. More recently Ive seen some of the headsets that have the comms for an F/A-18 ICS (in line mic amplifier) and some for the V-22 Osprey (Tempest comms). The Army uses those cocoa brown covers for ground crews that wear them sometimes.

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phantomfixer

Dig the Hydro designation and use....cover and shell has good honest use

 

Looks to me, like the headsets have been added, no wear to them, and the C clips holding the ear cups to the frame are missing...

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Bob, can you tell us what digits are etched onto the ear cups?

 

Looking at the numbers etched onto the plastic ear cup. The first three digits will indicate the squadron, the next three digits will indicate the work shop within the squadron. This one looks like "040". If my eyes are accurate then this cranial helmet was worn by a Quality Assurance Inspector for a EA-6B squadron on the west coast.

 

 

 

Chris

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phantomfixer

The "C" clips were considered a FOD hazard and were required to be removed.

 

Chris

was a Navy reg?.. we left em in in the AF

 

QA use would explain the limited wear

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Bob, can you tell us what digits are etched onto the ear cups?

 

Looking at the numbers etched onto the plastic ear cup. The first three digits will indicate the squadron, the next three digits will indicate the work shop within the squadron. This one looks like "040". If my eyes are accurate then this cranial helmet was worn by a Quality Assurance Inspector for a EA-6B squadron on the west coast.

 

 

 

Chris

 

The numbers look to be PM3-040-008

 

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Ahh..nice..from my era!

 

Saw lots of these on CVN-73 in every color, most without mics, just the mickey mouse ears (hearing protection..have worn a RED one when in Weapons Dept more than once! (mainly for .50 cal stuff or flight deck weapons elevator maintenance)

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Sorry, I should have stated that it was a Navy requirement to remove the "C" clips from cranial helmets in the 1980s and 1990s.

 

Bob, thank you for the additional picture.

 

The PM3 indicates the squadron. The "P" indicates a Pacific Fleet Squadron. The "040" verifies this helmet was used in the Quality Assurance shop, and it was cranial number eight assigned to an AMH1.

 

With the 9Q on the shells, this is probably a Whidbey Island assigned EA-6B prowler squadron.

 

Chris

 

Here I am wearing a Brown Cranial in 1991. I was a plane captain LPO on this cruise. No comms on this helmet though.

 

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The PM3 indicates the squadron. The "P" indicates a Pacific Fleet Squadron. The "040" verifies this helmet was used in the Quality Assurance shop, and it was cranial number eight assigned to an AMH1.

 

 

Coincidently my dad was an AMH - retiring as a Chief Petty Officer AMHC. After 20 years in the navy he went to work for an airline as an inspector - doing Quality Assurance.

 

I normally don't pick up deck helmets but the electronics are unusual to find on these.

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Sorry, I should have stated that it was a Navy requirement to remove the "C" clips from cranial helmets in the 1980s and 1990s.

 

Bob, thank you for the additional picture.

 

The PM3 indicates the squadron. The "P" indicates a Pacific Fleet Squadron. The "040" verifies this helmet was used in the Quality Assurance shop, and it was cranial number eight assigned to an AMH1.

 

With the 9Q on the shells, this is probably a Whidbey Island assigned EA-6B prowler squadron.

 

Chris

 

Here I am wearing a Brown Cranial in 1991. I was a plane captain LPO on this cruise. No comms on this helmet though.

 

attachicon.gif image.jpeg

Thatd be cool if it was from the EA6-B Squadron on Whidbey, I used to hear them a lot from my house....and surprisingly I live in Victoria, Canada but Whidbey isnt that far from us, about 80 miles due east, and now the Whidbey based EA-18 Growlers can be heard very clearly when theyre on training flights etc.

 

Rick

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