[Normy]

Well, one of the guys I used to fly with had an idea: He took a Bic pen, and cut the last centimeter off of the ink tube. Then he took an earplug, one of the ones with flared "ears" at the end and used a pin to make a hole through the center. Then he flared out the Bic pen tube on the end so that it wasn't sharp, and he mounted this tube to the removed end of a Telex PEV-77 in-ear aviation headset.

On top of the tube, the ear plug went in BACKWARDS, so that the flared end was inside the ear. This headset worked magnificently! I've used $900 Bose aviation headsets and this cheap setup before, and this setup puts the Bose to shame! It is WAY quieter, and radio calls are far easier to hear. I used one of these for about 700 hours of flying.

The guy that came up with this, Bob...went to patent this, but it had already been done. The problem with Bob's idea was that the plastic Bic pen tubes were too long. I remember a few times using these and I had to kind of cram the earplugs in, and the tubes were touching my tympanic membranes [ear drums] which was uncomfortable. We tried to make them shorter, but then the ear plug would block some of the sound, and make it difficult to hear. While it worked, it was difficult to get right.

Today, I just use the company Telex 750 headsets and ear plugs. I can hear ATC with the volume up all the way, and with my left ear off, I can hear what my crew is talking about.

N!