Gallet Helmet and ANR

sierra bravo said:

Randy,

The change was precipitated by glasses and the fact that a good friend left me his K10 when he moved to Florida to fly and work on really cool aerobatic airplanes so my investment was minimal. I do think my Gallet will return to favor if I can retrofit some gel ear seals. I'll run to Northern Lights in the next few days and see what, if anything on their shelf, fits the Gallet ear cups. Wifey can wear the DC helmet once I make the Gallet work better.

BTW, I don't think the DC helmet is on par with the Gallet for head protection. My focus right now is on hearing protection. The DC is easier on the hair, though.

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Light Speed zulu's fit the DC-10 just fine...8)

WindOnHisNose said:

Stewart, when I first posted on this thread I ran into the difficulty using my reading glasses when wearing the Gallet helmet, too. Obviously, I hit the age of needing reading glasses far earlier than you

Has anyone found a good solution for this? I am not wanting to give up on the Gallet, given the $$ I spent...errr...invested in this helmet.

I am very curious as to how the ANR will compare between the Gallet and the DC, SB. Also, I am wondering if you compared the Gallet with the K10 helmet back before you made the switch...something must have registered with you to entice you to make that change?!

Randy

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Randy,

I flew with Gallet helmets and sunglasses for a few thousand hours...never a problem. All my glasses have pretty small bows, though....none of those cool guy wrap arounds. 8)

I nearly always wear sunglasses when flying, and have never run into problems with any headsets associated with the glasses.

MTV

OLDCROWE said:

Light Speed zulu's fit the DC-10 just fine...8)

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Kirby,

Did the Zulu ear cups snap right into the K-10 liner or did you need to modify the ear cup openings? How about providing some info? Maybe somebody else with Zulus will add a helmet if they know think they can adapt it easily enough.

For those who don't know, the DC liner has ear cup openings that allow you to remove the gel seals from the headset, snap the ear cup through a very firm fitting ear cup diaphragm in the liner, and then you put the seals back on as normal. Perfect fit and very secure. I didn't consider another headset and am pleased with the H10-13Xs and the integration into the helmet.

sierra bravo said:

Kirby,

Did the Zulu ear cups snap right into the K-10 liner or did you need to modify the ear cup openings? How about providing some info? Maybe somebody else with Zulus will add a helmet if they know think they can adapt it easily enough.

For those who don't know, the DC liner has ear cup openings that allow you to remove the gel seals from the headset, snap the ear cup through a very firm fitting ear cup diaphragm in the liner, and then you put the seals back on as normal. Perfect fit and very secure. I didn't consider another headset and am pleased with the H10-13Xs and the integration into the helmet.

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Stewart

I just modified my David Clark Liner last week to fit my Zulu's, it was tight but the fit. I flew with that combination for just over an hour on Tuesday and was quite satisfied with the fit and comfort. In order to make them fit I had to slice the headphone opening at 8 places on each side out to the limits of the stitching, then the liner gasket held the earphone snug in the liner

Thanks, Dale. That's good info.

I didn't cut the gaskets and it took a little bit to work the headsets through just took the ear cups seals off. The headset will pop out of the helmet liner seal sometimes when you take it off or put it on but a little squeeze adjust and all is good that cut might fix that issue. I wear them regularly but not on longer trips. A simple snap on visor is wonderful. This setup has has saved my noggin more than once in bad bumps... Definitely better than a ball cap (even with the bean cut off) but also not a rated helmet and for me that's ok.

Kirby

Thanks, Kirby, I'm glad you got it to work.

Randy, If all you need is occasional readers you can stick some Optx 20/20 readers on your visor. http://www.safetyglassesusa.com/optx-20-20.html I've gotten away with that for a few years without a hitch. These days I wear progressive lenses all the time and my eyes aren't comfortable when I take them off so I'm electing to wear them to fly. As you know the Gallet shell and liner are very close fitted so while MTV suggests glasses haven't been an issue for him they've been a big problem for me. I guess the shape of my head isn't conducive to glasses in a Gallet so I looked for an acceptable solution. Like you, I'd like to adjust the Gallet to work and will attempt to do just that. The original investment justifies a little effort to improve it. I like the DC gel seals in summer but they're uncomfortable in winter. Maybe the Oregon Aero hush seals will fit. I'll let you know.

Crap. I just pulled the Gallet out and remembered the ear modules are sealed/sewn as a unit. Back to the drawing board. :-(

I dislike ANR. I have had almost all the brands and most have failed me, leaving me with thousands of dollars of junk!

One brand of ANR failed as I was doing an ILS. The headset freaked out and made such a loud noise I had to remove it. It turned out I could duplicate the failure buy setting the props on may PA23-250C to full forward. Totally bizarre. To me ANR has simply been dangerous! Your results may vary (I hope!).

PS Bose never failed, but the cost.

8GCBC said:

I dislike ANR. I have had almost all the brands and most have failed me, leaving me with thousands of dollars of junk!

One brand of ANR failed as I was doing an ILS. The headset freaked out and made such a loud noise I had to remove it. It turned out I could duplicate the failure buy setting the props on may PA23-250C to full forward. Totally bizarre. To me ANR has simply been dangerous! Your results may vary (I hope!).

PS Bose never failed, but the cost.

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Interesting. I've used half a dozen different ANR setups (helmets and headsets) and the only one that didn't work for me was the later Bose headsets. But, that's because I have big ears and the ear cups on the Bose don't seal well for me.

The key to ANR is getting a good seal around the ear cups. If you don't do that, you'll get all sorts of nasty noise in the headset.

That said, every ANR setup I've used has a switch to turn off the ANR. Then, it's just another headset/helmet.

Mtv

Protec works great--had to dremel up the ears a bit-I use Bose ANR-also scratched it up and rattle canned it tan instead of black --been using it for about a year and no problem wearing cool guy sunglasses

FWIW

Randy,

This is a repeat for you but I figured I'd post a little Gallet ear cup re-fit tutorial since i just worked on the ear cup pressure to try to improve the seal around my eyeglass temples.

The ear cups are built as a unit and enclosed in leather using Oregon Aero temper foam seals. The audio modules are held in the helmet with velcro. The yellow is the exposed raw shell after the module is pulled out.


Here's the module back showing the velcro pad sewn in place.


In order to shim the ear cup out and increase the seal pressure, hopefully to help the temper foam seal around my eyeglasses, I made velcro shims using self-stick velcro stuck back-to-back. I stacked two shims under each ear cup. Each shim is a hook patch stuck to a loop patch. Ultimately the order of hook on the ear cup mates to loop on the shell but with about 1/4" more height on each ear cup.


The finished product has the ear seals seating against my head with more pressure. Enough to seal effectively but not so much to make things uncomfortable. I can adjust more or less pressure in seconds by adding/deleting velcro shims. The whole idea was simple since I keep a roll of self-stick velcro around for all kind of projects, like custom fitting a very expensive flight helmet. Y'all can buy self-stick velcro at a craft, fabric, or home improvement store. The Walmart sewing section will have it, too. So far I think it'll do the trick. I'll take both helmets for a ride tomorrow or the next day for a shake down cruise. I hope this helps you other Gallet owners a little. It seems like the path of least resistance to a suitable solution. For you guys who find "leaks" around your Gallet ear seals, this is the cat's meow. Increase the temper foam contact pressure and enjoy the quiet the helmet was intended to provide.

Your Gallet should have come with double sided Velcro dots to do exactly what you did.
Since helmets don't have spring loaded ear cups it is the only way to get a good seal.

Rob,

i don't care about the visor. It is what it is and there's no space for glasses. I can accept that. The eyeglasses interfere with the seal at the ears. Increasing the seal pressure is my best bet shy of replacing the modules in my helmet, which are not Headsets Inc. The modules may be replaceable since they are removable but no individual components are replaceable, like the ear seals. By your comments I guess not all Gallets are typical of mine. My comm system is excellent other than the degradation caused by ear seal leaks at the eyeglass temples and in my case I can add some seal pressure without compromising comfort. Going back through this thread I recognized many comments regarding noise in Gallet helmets. If those owners' helmets resemble mine the shims should improve their audio noise as well.

SB

I woke up this morning and called Merit Apparel to explore the possibility of adding the external visor to my helmet. Rob Hamers, helpful as always, told me it was not practical and said he couldn't modify the helmet. Bummer. He asked why I needed it and I told him about my glasses issue and how my internal visor can't close over the glasses. In about 2 minutes he talked me through how to adjust the fit of the helmet to shift the shell forward on my head, allowing the visor to close over my everyday spectacles. This isn't theory, I've put the helmet on with my glasses on and the visor goes up and down without any problem. Now I need to gather up a small piece of foam and make some permanent adjustments but the glasses and the internal visor clearly can co-exist. Once again I'm impressed with Merit and their on-going commitment to their customers.

Ear seals fixed, visor closing over glasses, problems solved.

Rob said:

Your Gallet should have come with double sided Velcro dots to do exactly what you did.
Since helmets don't have spring loaded ear cups it is the only way to get a good seal.

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Rob,

If I ever had them they went into the trash with the spare padding, etc about 7 years ago. No reason to keep what I'll never be able to find.

Thanks for the visor comments last night. Without them I wouldn't have called Merit and worked out the visor problem.

Geez, Stewart, what did you do to your thumb??? Must have hurt...

Randy

Stewart and Rob, I can't wait to get out to try this out! Nice! Thanks so much for the posts.

Randy

I borrowed a LH50 from a friend last year and I was unable to use glasses with the internal visor down. This was a 2004 model with slightly different padding/liner than what they sell today.

In December I took the plunge and ordered a LH250 from Merrit with the Zeta liner and OA hush kit. With this helmet I can comfortably wear both reading glasses or progressives with the internal visor down. Both sets of glasses are fairly slim fit.

I think SierraBravo has a point here. How you combine the brow/top/nape pads in the helmet controls the position of the head front-to-back.

H