Doug Ranly

The famous green domes of David Clark headsets have been around longer than most of us have been flying, with a legendary reputation for durability. A little known fact is that David Clark started in aerospace by making high altitude spacesuits for the military. Communication became part of the suits, so speakers and microphones were developed. David Clark made their first pilot headset in 1975 and quickly became a mainstay in cockpits around the world.

When going through the plethora of data available about aviation headsets, you will inevitably come across the abbreviation TSO. This stands for Technical Standard Order and it is the FAA’s way of saying an item is approved for use on an airplane. Why does that matter? We'll explain.

Do do you have the right equipment for flying kids? Here are the top 5 products you need to help make sure kids have an enjoyable flight.

My experience with the Clarity Aloft

Many pilots chase the latest technology, from active noise reduction to Bluetooth audio. But while these headsets are impressive, there is another option: in-the-ear. Is this type of headset right for you?

Oxygen systems are only for turbocharged airplanes and flights above 12,500 feet, right? Wrong. Even pilots of normally aspirated airplanes will find plenty of uses for a good portable system, from increasing passenger comfort to flying safer at night. Here's our advice for when to use oxygen and how to choose the right system.

Performance + Durability = Game Changer

We first arrived in the Iraqi desert early in 2004. The invasion dubbed “shock and awe” happened in 2003, so our battalion was part of the rebuilding phase. This was well before all the fancy armored vehicles appeared in theater. The “armor” on our trucks and humvees consisted of sheet metal we cut via torch and welded together. This armor “worked” for bullets, but not so much for IEDs. We would later learn the hard way that the IEDs were a much larger threat.

Gearcreep: When stuff is left laying around and starts getting in the way of important tasks.

For anyone who has kids, gearcreep is a daily adventure. Books, bags, lunchboxes, one blue sock, and clarinet reeds somehow can’t cross the forcefield that is found approximately 10 feet inside my front door. Eventually, the forcefield can’t hold back the massive piles of junk and the gear starts creeping across the floor, only to be found at 2 am while stumbling down the hall to the bathroom.

“It’s magic.” At least that is what I thought the first time I turned on an Active Noise Reduction (ANR) headset. WOW! What kind of wizardry is happening in these ear cups? I was instantly convinced that ANR might be the single greatest innovation in aviation history. The noise environment of a piston airplane makes communications tough, but modern ANR headsets have revolutionized the way pilots communicate.

The first product Sporty’s ever sold was a receiver/scanner. The small radio allowed student pilots to listen to the interactions between air traffic controllers and airline pilots. By hearing these professionals speak on the radio, students could learn how to better communicate when they were flying. The radios have drastically changed since we first started in 1961, but pilots still like to listen to each other while on the ground.

Buying your first headset can be confusing. There are a lot of things to consider: passive noise reduction (PNR) vs. active noise reduction (ANR), plug types, Bluetooth, aux inputs, ear seals, and finally mono vs. stereo. While we won’t tackle every subject in one blog, we will attempt to answer that age old question: Do I need a mono or stereo headset?