Using ANR in an open cockpit?

[Jay Honeck]

I've used ANR headsets in aircraft for years, with great effectiveness. In fact, I'd rate ANR as one of the top three innovations that has revolutionized personal flying since I learned to fly 14 years ago.

However, we recently bought a 1948 Ercoupe as a second, knock-around plane for our kids to fly. Strangely enough, I've discovered that my Lightspeed Twenty 3Gs -- so effective in our Pathfinder -- don't work at all in the Ercoupe. In fact, they INDUCE extra noise, as they pop and buzz in reaction to the extreme noise of flying with the "top down". (One of the great joys of flying the Ercoupe, I might add...)

Any suggestions? Is this common to ALL ANR headsets, or just LightSpeeds? I'm thinking of upgrading to the Zulu at OSH this year -- would that model work better, or should I just look for a used pair of old-fashioned HeadClamps to use when I want to take the "convertible" out for a spin?

Thanks!

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I've used ANR headsets in aircraft for years, with great effectiveness. In fact, I'd rate ANR as one of the top three innovations that has revolutionized personal flying since I learned to fly 14 years ago.

However, we recently bought a 1948 Ercoupe as a second, knock-around plane for our kids to fly. Strangely enough, I've discovered that my Lightspeed Twenty 3Gs -- so effective in our Pathfinder -- don't work at all in the Ercoupe. In fact, they INDUCE extra noise, as they pop and buzz in reaction to the extreme noise of flying with the "top down". (One of the great joys of flying the Ercoupe, I might add...)

Any suggestions? Is this common to ALL ANR headsets, or just LightSpeeds? I'm thinking of upgrading to the Zulu at OSH this year -- would that model work better, or should I just look for a used pair of old-fashioned HeadClamps to use when I want to take the "convertible" out for a spin?

Thanks!

Jay,

I have the Lightspeeds too, and I think what happens with them when exposed to a lot of wind is that the cups are separating from your ears somewhat, and the ANR goes nuts trying to compensate for the sudden noise. You could just turn the ANR off, or you could get some head clamps. I doubt the Zulu would be any better, and in fact probably worse. The Bose would be worse than worthless. I think without the clamping, nothing will really work, so probably some of the older David Clarks are the only ANR's that would do any good.

 

[gibbons]

Jay,

I never found ANR headsets that worked well in either the Pitts or the Extra. I finally went with a good quality passive clamp headset. Some ANR's worked better than others (Bose were worst and Peltor was best in my case, Lightspeed somewhere in the middle). Good old fashioned DC's did the best job. Fortunately I didn't have to wear them very long on any one flight in those airplanes. Good luck.

[edit] Just read Kent's response. Great minds... [/edit]

 

[TMetzinger]

You might try getting the DC helmet, and then adding the Headsets, Inc ANR kit to them. You've gotta have a good seal around the ears for ANR.

Only other suggestion might be to try the Clarity Aloft In-Ear units. If they seal well, they may be the best bet. I know that the noise levels on stage where those things are used are brutal, and they allow the performers to hear and protect their hearing.

 

[CJones]

Our RV is obnoxiously loud inside. When I wear Lightspeeds, if I turn my head just right - pulling the cup away a bit - I get the clicking/buzzing noise you're talking about. My Telex ANR's don't do it, and they provide ANR when the cup is sealed. I'm not sure if they fall into the 'clamp' category or not.

 

[wanttaja]

Jay, the first set of ANR headsets I tried in my Fly Baby were Lightspeeds, and they definitely didn't like the open-cockpit environment. They made motorboat sounds every time I moved my head.

~10 years ago, I bought a Flightcom Denali ANR, and it handles the open-cockpit environment nicely. I've got more details at:

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/stories/ears.HTM

However, the Ercoupe is not an open-cockpit airplane...with the windows slid down, you're probably getting a lot of turbulence from the rear fixed section of the canopy. That turbulence is what messes up the ANR.

One factor if you're looking at a headset for an open-cockpit environment is drag. The Lightspeeds stick out from your head farther than, for instance, my Flightcoms do. I think there's more out there being affected by the various drafts.

One suggestion is to turn off the ANR and wear foam earplugs under the headset.

Ron Wanttaja

 

[Jay Honeck]

One suggestion is to turn off the ANR and wear foam earplugs under the headset.

Ron Wanttaja

I actually tried foam earplugs under the headsets, but they were TOO effective, and I couldn't hear the danged radio.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll look into them further...

 

[Jay Honeck]

Only other suggestion might be to try the Clarity Aloft In-Ear units. If they seal well, they may be the best bet. I know that the noise levels on stage where those things are used are brutal, and they allow the performers to hear and protect their hearing.

I've wondered about those, but they seem awfully pricey...

I borrowed a couple of El Cheapo no-name head-clamp headsets on my last Ercoupe flight, and they actually worked much better than the ANRs. Unfortunately, the cheap ones don't clamp very hard, which means lots of ambient noise -- but it's still better than the ANR's added "motor boat sounds" as they struggle to attenuate all the open-window racket.

Guess I'll be watching Ebay for some old DCs...

 

[Jay Honeck]

Our RV is obnoxiously loud inside. When I wear Lightspeeds, if I turn my head just right - pulling the cup away a bit - I get the clicking/buzzing noise you're talking about. My Telex ANR's don't do it, and they provide ANR when the cup is sealed. I'm not sure if they fall into the 'clamp' category or not.

They must clamp harder than the Lightspeeds. If I hold my ear cups tightly against my head (in the Ercoupe), the Lightspeeds work just fine. Unfortunately, it's hard to fly that way...



Guess we'll end up leaving/using the ANRs in the Pathfinder, where the background noise is more consistent (and there's no wind blowing around inside the cabin)...

 

[jesse]

I love my old DC's. I'm pretty sure they are older then I am and they work perfectly. Much of their life was spent crop dusting. I haven't had problems with the clamping hurting my head in years. If I ever do upgrade it'll be to the Zulus but I feel no real desire.

Tristan has a Bose Aviation X that has all sorts of ANR induced problems. Clicks, pops, etc. Needs to be sent back.

 

[tonycondon]

I flew the ercoupe with the top down all the time using my 30-3Gs and experienced no problems. YMMV obviously. I do know the noise you're talking about though, I get it when in a big sideslip in the super cub with the pilot window open. very annoying.

Our RV is obnoxiously loud inside. When I wear Lightspeeds, if I turn my head just right - pulling the cup away a bit - I get the clicking/buzzing noise you're talking about. My Telex ANR's don't do it, and they provide ANR when the cup is sealed. I'm not sure if they fall into the 'clamp' category or not.

interesting because I've never had a problem with my Lightspeeds in your RV.

 

[Jay Honeck]

I flew the ercoupe with the top down all the time using my 30-3Gs and experienced no problems. YMMV obviously. I do know the noise you're talking about though, I get it when in a big sideslip in the super cub with the pilot window open. very annoying.

Well, I've got a beard, and I wear glasses, so I think the "seal" around my ears is already marginal. Combine that with the wind of the open cockpit/windows, and you've got a recipe for breaking the all-important seal around my ears, which renders the ANR inop.

In our Pathfinder, they work absolutely perfectly....

 

[Clark1961]

Well, I've got a beard, and I wear glasses, so I think the "seal" around my ears is already marginal. Combine that with the wind of the open cockpit/windows, and you've got a recipe for breaking the all-important seal around my ears, which renders the ANR inop.

Maybe it's time to rid yourself of the seal breakers...

The beard is relatively simple but requires periodic maintenance.

The glasses are somewhat more challenging but there are many options available these days. I wore glasses for 38+ years but require them no more. It's truly well worth the discomfort and cost to be rid of them. And the vision is great, I've picked up airports at better than 30 miles (DME) out.

 

[Jay Honeck]

Maybe it's time to rid yourself of the seal breakers...

The glasses are somewhat more challenging but there are many options available these days. I wore glasses for 38+ years but require them no more. It's truly well worth the discomfort and cost to be rid of them. And the vision is great, I've picked up airports at better than 30 miles (DME) out.

LASIK, I presume?

I've toyed with that idea for years. Just haven't round to doing it...

 

[wby0nder]

I asked a bunch of open cockpit pilots about ear protection when I was getting ready to fly my Fly Baby. Hard shell helmets don't help much, headsets aren't too great. The best is a classic fabric "helmet" with ANR ear cups installed. This is all "as I'm told" since I built a canopy for the FB and use my 30-3Gs so far.

The ear seals on the Lightspeeds are really good and glasses make no difference BTW.
MM

 

[CJones]

interesting because I've never had a problem with my Lightspeeds in your RV.

The ear seal on your 30-3G's are quite a bit thicker than on the XC's that we have. I have pretty bony cheekbones as well. The seal breaks on my Telex ANR's sometimes, too, though not as often (thicker gel seals than the LS XC's), but when they DO break seal, they don't make the buzzing sound like the LS's.

 

[Clark1961]

LASIK, I presume?

I've toyed with that idea for years. Just haven't round to doing it...

Not LASIK, ICL - they put the lense in my eye

Although ICL is expen$ive it does have a nice success rate and it does very little damage to the eye. I had 20/30 vision the day of the surgery. It stabilized at 20/15 and is still great vision 1.5 years later. I do have occasional days of amazingly bloodshot eyes when they get irritated so it's not a perfect world. Still glad I had the procedure...

 

[Jay Honeck]

Not LASIK, ICL - they put the lense in my eye

Although ICL is expen$ive it does have a nice success rate and it does very little damage to the eye. I had 20/30 vision the day of the surgery. It stabilized at 20/15 and is still great vision 1.5 years later. I do have occasional days of amazingly bloodshot eyes when they get irritated so it's not a perfect world. Still glad I had the procedure...

So why not LASIK? I've known quite a few people who swear it was the best thing they've ever done. What's the advantage of a lens implant?

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I asked a bunch of open cockpit pilots about ear protection when I was getting ready to fly my Fly Baby. Hard shell helmets don't help much, headsets aren't too great. The best is a classic fabric "helmet" with ANR ear cups installed. This is all "as I'm told" since I built a canopy for the FB and use my 30-3Gs so far.

Matt, you got the Fly Baby going?

 

[skyflyer8]

However, we recently bought a 1948 Ercoupe as a second, knock-around plane for our kids to fly. Strangely enough, I've discovered that my Lightspeed Twenty 3Gs -- so effective in our Pathfinder -- don't work at all in the Ercoupe. In fact, they INDUCE extra noise, as they pop and buzz in reaction to the extreme noise of flying with the "top down". (One of the great joys of flying the Ercoupe, I might add...)

Jay,
I had the same problem the past couple days. I just got checked out in my student's Ercoupe (writeup on my blog coming soon). It only happened when I leaned too far toward the wind.

 

[Clark1961]

So why not LASIK? I've known quite a few people who swear it was the best thing they've ever done. What's the advantage of a lens implant?

LASIK was not an opton for me. My cornea is not thick enough to allow the required ablation and still have the FDA minimum thickness.

In more general terms, the ICL has no risk associated with cutting a big chunk of cornea, lifting the chunk, and then burning tissue away underneath the chunk. All the ICL requires is 4 small punctures through the cornea that don't require stitches and they seal naturally. The punctures are outside the light path through the eye so they do not affect vision.

From my perspective as a "high myope" look long and hard at the LASIK failure modes before electing the work. ICL will cost 3 or 4x as much but it has essentially only one difficult to manage failure mode (as I understand it - talk to the opthamologist for the full scoop) and that is the risk of causing a cataract. Bad case is the lenses are removed and you're back to external lenses. Worst case is you lose the natural lense and have standard cataract surgery. With LASIK, you're pretty much stuck with whatever you get.

One of the more interesting points in assessing the success or failure of these procedures is that the FDA does *not* track the quality of the vision, only the final correction required. In other words, the FDA does not track problems such as halos or starbursts.

 

[Joe B]

Maybe it's time to rid yourself of the seal breakers...The glasses are somewhat more challenging but there are many options available these days. I wore glasses for 38+ years but require them no more. It's truly well worth the discomfort and cost to be rid of them. And the vision is great, I've picked up airports at better than 30 miles (DME) out.

Getting rid of the everyday glasses doesn't get rid of sunglasses, does it?

 

[Everskyward]

Getting rid of the everyday glasses doesn't get rid of sunglasses, does it?

That's what I was thinking too. I wear contacts but I virtually always wear sunglasses when flying except at night.

I wear the Clarity Aloft in-ear headset although I've never tried them in an open cockpit airplane. I think they would be good in the sense that there's not much to them so there would be very little wind resistance.

 

[Jim Burns]

Jay,
Which seals do you have on your 20-3Gs? Mickey or mini mouse? If you want to switch to the thicker style and give that a try, call LS, they'll send you a set. Or, they might even have some in "behind the counter" at OSH. The thicker style helped get rid of some of the reverb in the Aztec. Also, I found the older 20 XL's didn't have that problem and I have 2 sets that we don't normally use if you want to try them. You could even take the top pads off and glue in a thinner pad if you wanted to reduce the height.

Any more thoughts of flying the Ercoupe to OSH?

 

[Jay Honeck]

Jay,
Which seals do you have on your 20-3Gs? Mickey or mini mouse? If you want to switch to the thicker style and give that a try, call LS, they'll send you a set. Or, they might even have some in "behind the counter" at OSH. The thicker style helped get rid of some of the reverb in the Aztec. Also, I found the older 20 XL's didn't have that problem and I have 2 sets that we don't normally use if you want to try them. You could even take the top pads off and glue in a thinner pad if you wanted to reduce the height.

Any more thoughts of flying the Ercoupe to OSH?

Thanks, I might take you up on that. Part (most?) of my problem is that I sit pretty tall in the saddle, so my head is more "in the wind" than most -- although Mary is having a similar problem.

I think the ANRs are set up to handle (and cancel) a steady drone, which is definitely NOT what you get in the Ercoupe with the top down. The wildly changing amplitudes and frequencies, combined with the occasional breaking of the ear seal, are simply overwhelming the circuitry.

In fact, we may have broken one of them using them in the plane. We flew the Pathfinder, and one pair of our Lightspeeds is now "louder" than the others, with a "wowwing" effect that was never there before...

Re: OSH. I don't see any good way to get the Ercoupe there. It's too slow to fly in our caravan, and Mary doesn't want to fly into OSH without me -- otherwise I'd jump out to a big head start in the 'Coupe, and let her fly Atlas. Therefore, we'd have to fly the Ercoupe up in advance and park it, then drive/fly back to Iowa to get Atlas, blah, blah, blah -- which seems like an awful lot of work for not much return.

Maybe next year, if Joe gets enough experience in the meantime...

 

[jkeesaman]

My Thirty-3Gs don't work well in my coupe, top open as well. I've since switched to a Quiet Technologies Halo in ear headset and like it much better. In the coupe the additional headroom helps significantly and they are quieter, both top open or closed. I'd look at QT Halos or Clarity Aloft. QT has a 30 day return period.

 

[wby0nder]

Matt, you got the Fly Baby going?

Yes sir. Landing at an airport near you soon!
MM

 

[Clark1961]

Getting rid of the everyday glasses doesn't get rid of sunglasses, does it?

Post surgery sunglasses are an interesting proposition. I like to have more light now than I did before the overhaul. The ICL include UV blocking so my retina's have some additional protection without sunglasses.

About the only time I have to have sunglasses is when my eyes are exposed to wind. Wind dries out my eyes rather easily which I think has more to do with always having glasses rather than some problem from the surgery. That said, the transition from shade to bright sunlight could be painful right after the surgery but it's been getting better. I'm thinking that the wide dialation required for surgery did some damage to the muscles that move the iris so they ached a bit for awhile.

The transition from looking out the window to scanning the panel can be tough under certain conditions. On bright days the standard light grey sunglasses are mostly fine. For hazy and PC days I'm still searching for the perfect pair of sunglasses - I think I'm gonna try brown with a transition to clear at the bottom next.

All that said, wearing sunglasses and wearing corrective lenses are two different animals. Corrective lenses have to be "just so" to work while sunglasses can sit just about anywhere, e.g. they can move with the headset.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Yes sir. Landing at an airport near you soon!
MM

Awesome!

 

[wby0nder]

Awesome!

I agree. It was a long project and I'm glad to be done. I got to the point that I didn't care if I ever flew it. I just wanted it done so I could get on with my life. Now... Super fun to fly. Climbs like crazy, very maneuverable, cruises better than expected (90mph)

Matt

 

[jesse]

I agree. It was a long project and I'm glad to be done. I got to the point that I didn't care if I ever flew it. I just wanted it done so I could get on with my life. Now... Super fun to fly. Climbs like crazy, very maneuverable, cruises better than expected (90mph)

Matt

Nice--I can't wait to see it Matt.