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Unique USN APH-6C


Wayward Son
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I picked this up from a retired airline pilot who was downsizing his personal belongings. This was his helmet when he was in the US Navy in the 70's.

At the time he was issued this helmet, he was stationed at Naval Air Facility (NAF) Washington DC, todays Joint Base Andrews. He said he made several friends amongst the enlisted "Rigging" crew, and when it was time to customize his helmet, this is what they presented him. All the stars are nicely cut from yellow reflective tape as is the NAF lettering on the rear.

The helmet is in great, but well used condition. The owner did mention that it did a great job of protecting his "Noggin" during a forced landing in the Potomac River at one point during his career! Enjoy.

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47 minutes ago, hink441 said:

Nice helmet. Looks like something is written on the visor housing. Is that a name?  Do you know what aircraft he flew?

 

Chris

It was the aviators last name. He tried to sanitize it before letting it go.

As for aircraft, He flew the S-2 Tracker. On occasion, he flew a T6 when Naval Aviators assigned to ground duties like the Pentagon showed up needing their monthly 4 hours of flight time to keep their flight pay. 

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That is one fine customized helmet, very colorful indeed and uncommon, with an intersting history attached to it, congratulations 🙂 !

Too bad the owner removed his taped name marking, it would have made a great addition to this shell - even if it's still readable.

I'm just a little surprised there's no boom mic mounted on the side, they were a common equipment in that kind of aircraft.

 

The 70's were the very last years of the Tracker in the USN, I read that they were withdrawn from naval service in summer 1976, but many of them had already been in the Naval Reserve for a few years prior to this date. NAF Washington was amongst these reserve facilities.

Quote

Due to Anacostia's short runways, the Naval Air Station moved to Andrews Air Force Base in 1958 to facilitate jet operations. The transfer to Andrews AFB was complete by December 1961, concurrent with the commissioning of the new Naval Air Facility.

In April 1972, NARTU Washington became Naval Air Reserve Unit Washington with the primary mission of training Selected Reservists. NARU included VFP-206, VFP-306, VR-42 and 20 other tactical and non-tactical units. Since 1976, the logistics support mission of NAF Washington has included administrative transport flight operations and transient service support to arriving aircraft.

 

Out of curiosity, in order to illustrate this helmet's background, I searched the web for S-2s at Andrews AFB circa 1970, and a few matching pictures came out in this slideshow, hopefully one of the Trackers he flew in ?!
I assume some of them just landed at NAF Washington (Andrews AFB) as you will see, but I'm pretty sure that the ones featuring "Washington" painted on the vertical stabilizer were permanantly based there, as shown below (another one back in 65).


image.png.cd19998059ad45b4bdef8b80178b4a05.png

 

Very nice helmet !

- Gauthier

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On 12/18/2020 at 2:27 AM, hink441 said:

Very nice. I like the tape job. Is there a Velcro square on the right side of the visor?

 

Chris

No velcro on this one I am happy to say. It would have ruined the great pattern of stars on the visor housing.

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Pretty nice helmet.   Any evidence of a boom mic mount on the right side?   Id imagine if wearing a helmet in the S-2 they used booms and no mask.

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As this was a "gift" at the end of his service, the ALS guys probably did not consider

that it might be critiqued later on, and therefore omitted all of the associated comms, SDU5 mount, etc..

that would have supported practical use.

Very nice authentic "as received from the NAVY" artifact

 

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1 hour ago, mohawkALSE said:

Pretty nice helmet.   Any evidence of a boom mic mount on the right side?   Id imagine if wearing a helmet in the S-2 they used booms and no mask.

There had been a boom mic mount on the right side. I removed it when the plastic ear cup fastening spacer it mounted to shattered into unrepairable pieces during shipping. I gave the mount to Vark_07 so he could finish a project of his. Until I can find a replacement Sierra OEM spacer, I have the ear cup fastened by effective, but ugly, rubber spacers.

With that being said, if anyone here can spare two white plastic ear cup fastening spacers, please let me know. 

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