Fold-able (to flat) IFR Hood

mswmsw

mswmsw

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mswmsw
Once upon a time, I had a really useful foldable IFR hood. It was made out of some sort of stiffened - but still pretty thin - laminated green cardboard material, had Jeppesen printed on it (IIRC) and folded flat into thirds. It had a thin elastic band on it, to go around the back of your head, and when you opened it up, it made a perfectly suitable IFR Hood. It actually fit (was designed to fit, I believe) inside the back flap of a leather Jepp binder ........ some of you Old Folk like me will remember Jepps, and those seemingly endless paper revisions....... Anyway, it was a very handy, flat, little hood, and would take up very little space in a modern flight bag/kit. Alas, my Jepps have long been retired in favor of ForeFlight, and my great little foldable green Jepp IFR hood is nowhere to be found. I have searched the internet for something like this, with negative results.

Do any of you guys remember this type of hood? Anyone know where I can get something similar?
 
Why not foggles? They are so simple. I've never understood why people use those Little House on the Prairie-style bonnet hoods.
 
petrolero said:
Why not foggles? They are so simple. I've never understood why people use those Little House on the Prairie-style bonnet hoods.
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I have to wear glasses when I fly and found that the foggles didn't fit well with my glasses. As stupid as it looks, the hood actually worked for me
 
Maybe not the exact same thing but almost sounds like it - "The Best IFR Hood" aka "The 'Super'-Visor".

bestIFRhood.com
888-644-0591
from a Bill Weder 618-644-5831

I bought 3 thinking them disposable. Having a hard time wearing one out.

It's just folded up and printed on heavy manilla folder material with a stapled on elastic band. Works great!

Nice little business. I'm imagining several thousand printed and pre-loaded into envelopes. Order 3 and 3 separate envelopes arrive.
 
petrolero said:
Why not foggles? They are so simple. I've never understood why people use those Little House on the Prairie-style bonnet hoods.
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Besides the Foggles not working well with glasses, the Bonnets work better at blocking out the glare of the sun when doing approaches into the sunrise/sunset.

But this can be resolved by taping over fogged area of the the Foggles, or by taping over a pair of safety glasses to make you own foggles.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
I used flat flat paint on my foggles. I found the diffused lighting coming through the frosted portion was giving me bad headaches. The paint helped a bunch. So much so, the headaches were now attributed to my CFI instead.
 
Is this it?
 

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jordane93 said:
I have to wear glasses when I fly and found that the foggles didn't fit well with my glasses. As stupid as it looks, the hood actually worked for me
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I use $2 "visitor" safety glasses designed to wear over prescription glasses at work. Sat in the plane and traced the edge of the panel on them with a marker, taped off the area underneath and sandblasted everything else. Don't forget to blast the side shields, too.

If you blast on the inside, then scratches won't create those headache-inducing starburst effects, as it's much more difficult to scratch the inside of the glasses. They live in my flight bag, inside a beautiful purple Crown Royal bag.

Used them on my PPL & IA checkrides, after showing them to the DPE and letting him try to see through them. Very cloudlike, especially if you use a fine abrasive (I used glass beads for a light frosted look).
 
AuntPeggy said:
Is this it?
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Yes, Aunt Peggy, that's it! Wish I could find mine! While some of the items mentioned in the other replies work fine, the advantage of that green Jepp hood is that it folds flat, and that's what I want. Know where I can get one?

I think the closest one that I have seen mentioned here is "The Best IFR Hood" and for five bucks it is certainly worth a try. Thanks everyone!
 
mswmsw said:
Yes, Aunt Peggy, that's it! Wish I could find mine! While some of the items mentioned in the other replies work fine, the advantage of that green Jepp hood is that it folds flat, and that's what I want. Know where I can get one?

I think the closest one that I have seen mentioned here is "The Best IFR Hood" and for five bucks it is certainly worth a try. Thanks everyone!
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Create your own using some heavy cardboard. The PDF I attached should be able to be used to make a template.
 
AuntPeggy said:
Create your own using some heavy cardboard. The PDF I attached should be able to be used to make a template.
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I think I recall Dr. Bruce having a template to make one from a manilla folder. He said that, plus the elastic from a halloween mask made one of the best hoods going.
 
AggieMike88 said:
I think I recall Dr. Bruce having a template to make one from a manilla folder. He said that, plus the elastic from a halloween mask made one of the best hoods going.
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That's pretty simple, and would probably work just fine. I suggested to my kids to get me one of those five dollar thebestIFRhoods for Christmas. If I get coal instead, I think I will just splurge and go ahead and buy one of those five dollar folding hoods for myself. Thanks again for the ideas everyone.
 
Bill Watson said:
Maybe not the exact same thing but almost sounds like it - "The Best IFR Hood" aka "The 'Super'-Visor".

bestIFRhood.com
888-644-0591
from a Bill Weder 618-644-5831

I bought 3 thinking them disposable. Having a hard time wearing one out.

It's just folded up and printed on heavy manilla folder material with a stapled on elastic band. Works great!

Nice little business. I'm imagining several thousand printed and pre-loaded into envelopes. Order 3 and 3 separate envelopes arrive.
Click to expand...

I got one of these, and I agree it sounds very much like what the OP's looking for.

When I tried to wear it, I found that it created a pocket of still air in front of my face. For whatever reason, I'm wired to need a little bit of a breeze on my face most of the time, and I found this visor to be unwearable because of that.

I would guess most folks wouldn't find that to be as big a problem as I did.

I ended up taking some face-hugging safety goggles and applying scotch tape to make my own foggles. Not stylish, but who cares? (Neither is that cardboard visor!)
 
One good tip on useage. And yes, I failed at this more than once during my training...

Remember to put it on before taxiing out from the ramp.

Many times, neither the instructor or I noticed I wasn't wearing my Jepp Shades. And then when we just took off and were climbing through 300ft AGL and he said, "Okay, you just entered the clouds, but your hood down" did I notice they were still in the center storage console or worse, in the flight bag in the back seat
 

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AggieMike88 said:
One good tip on useage. And yes, I failed at this more than once during my training...

Remember to put it on before taxiing out from the ramp.
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That image is interesting. As a progressive wearer, I think I'd have trouble with that configuration because I'd be trying to read the panel with the part of my lenses that is focused for closer in reading. I'm doing more and more gyrations to keep everything in focus at various times. Totally an aging eyes issue.

BTW, for corrective lenses users. As you age, there can be real benefits from getting glasses 'tuned' to various tasks.

I have a shop pair of safety glasses optimized for arms length work and close in reading yet with just enough distance correction to enable looking across the hangar comfortably and daylight driving. Best decision I ever made with the eyes.

I have an internet/desk work pair for writing this and wanking.

I have a 'normal' pair for daily life and flying

The least critical pairs are RX sunglasses because in bright light, the eyes tend to work well at all distances. They just can't be polarized so mine are split between fishing-ok and flying-ok
 
brcase said:
Besides the Foggles not working well with glasses, the Bonnets work better at blocking out the glare of the sun when doing approaches into the sunrise/sunset.

But this can be resolved by taping over fogged area of the the Foggles, or by taping over a pair of safety glasses to make you own foggles.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
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They make clip-n-flip foggles too but I suppose the hood would work. Just always seemed excessively bulky for the simple task it accomplishes.

As far as glare through foggles, I had the same problem. A sharpie will take care of that.
 
I can see the panel fine without my glasses. During my instrument training I left my glasses on my leg and essentially swapped them with the foggles when I "broke out."
 
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