The Headset

I remember when I was a kid, I used to watch Hollywood movies, and my mouth never fails to gap at the actors in pilot uniform talking to each other in the cockpit. They wore huge headsets over their heads. Oh how I wished I could wear those headsets! Those typical pilots headsets, which were worn by pilots in Hollywood movies, consist of huge ear muffs and a huge microphone. The microphone was so big that I'm sure it also traps spits and saliva coming out of a pilots mouth. Back then, all pilots wear something like this....


Wearing this baby for twenty fours a day and seven days a week could damage your spine. And yes, I wore this kind of headset when I was a student pilot. When I was in flying school seven years ago, there were like seventy students flying the Piper Warrior. The school owned less than fifteen Piper Warriors and we had to share the headsets. Only instructors use their personal headsets. Students can use their own if they're rich enough to buy one. Others, like me, use the common headsets provided by the school.

We rarely shut down the engine between flights. When a student pilot return from his or her flight, another student would take over the aircraft without shutting down the engine. This would go on until the aircraft had to be refueled. Imagine the condition of a headset after a student pilot use it to fly in humid condition (bring a raw egg along with and you'll get a half-boiled egg after the flight). The cockpit was always hot. Night or day, you'd soak your shirt with your sweat. Your ears sweat too, do you know that? And the sweat from your ears could not go anywhere because of your huge headset. Oh yes, the headset was a good sweat-trapper alright. And after you finish your two hours flight, what do you do? You hand over your headset to the next guy or girl. Nice...

But after I finished my training in the Piper Warrior, I was surprised not to find any of those headsets in commercial aircraft. I flew the Boeing 737 after graduating from training school, and the airline provided the pilots with very simple headsets. Far from the huge neck breaking headset which I wore before. This modern looking headset is so light and traps less sweat from your head...


For those of you wondering how in the hell does this one work, well, allow me to explain. See the semi-circle shape? The one that has a spongy looking thing at the end? That, my friend, is what you put over your head. And no, the spongy thing does not go over your ears because it does not transmit any sound. It's made of sponge so that your skin wont hurt when it is pressed against your head. Adjust the headset until the sponge end up just above your ear. Now look at the other end of the semi-circle. What can you see? Two wires, and one weird looking thing that is actually made of rubber.

The wire, which fades out in this picture, is the actual wire, and usually it is plug into an outlet. The other wire, is not a wire at all. It's the microphone! Oh, but it looks so small compared to the spit-trapping microphone in the first picture! Rest assured, that is the microphone which a pilot speaks into. Now do you see the big picture? The semi-circle shape goes over your head, and the long microphone is adjusted until it ends up somewhere near your lips. Now, about the rubber thing.

That rubbery thingy, is what we call the earpiece. Yes my friend, use the earpiece by plugging it into your ear. In this picture it is grey in colour. Usually it's pink. Anyway, the earpiece can be detached from the whole headset. It's not meant to be attached to headset all the time. Why? Hygiene reasons. Would you like it if a stranger offers you a drink and you have to drink from the same straw that he used? Heck, you even use separate straws when drinking from the same glass with your girlfriend. Now don't you lie to me about that.

Back to the topic. Whenever I go to work, I don't need to bring my own headset. The cockpit has its own headset and I share it with other pilots. But the airline provides each of us with our own personal earpiece. My earpiece is smeared by my own ear wax and another pilots earpiece is smeared with his ear wax. After I finish my job for the day, I pull the earpiece from the headset and put it in my pocket.

One day, I was flying happily with a friendly and chatty captain. The captain was a senior pilot, maybe just a few years away from retirement age. His beard and moustache were not thick but he was not clean shaven all the time, so it was quite funny looking at him with few hairs sticking out of his face. Although he was quite old (maybe 50 something), he had a heart of a kid. Flying with him was fun as he knew his job very well, gave instructions like a true commander, but joked with me like a close friend. I remember vividly his laugh. Whenever he joked and laughed so hard, no voice came out of his mouth, just short whining sound. It reminds of the sound produced when starting a car.

That day we were flying in and out of the capital city. The last flight was from the capital city to another city in the east, where we were to end our duty and spend the rest of the night. We flew up to a height of 33000 feet and as pilots dont communicate much during cruise, we took our headsets off our head. Naturally, during cruise, we were discussing about the possible dinner venue. It was common to talk about food for two hours during cruise, and when we finally reach our hotel rooms, we'd be too tired and end up ordering room service.

When it was time to descend, we put on our headsets again. At the corner of my left eye, I saw the captain holding his headset, not wearing it. I turn towards him and saw him staring at his headset.

"My earpiece is not here", he said. I can see that his earpiece was missing, possibly detached by itself from the headset.

With no earpiece, it does not mean that we cannot hear instructions from air traffic controller. Any communication with them can always be heard through the loud speaker. But hearing through the loud speaker is not always crystal clear. It's like your handphone. You prefer to put your ear to your handphone rather than putting it on loud speaker, right?

So both of us pull out our torchlight and we began to look for the small important piece. And at the same time we got nearer and nearer to the airport. Finally it was time for landing. Still we did not find his earpiece. I still had mine though, and the captain could hear the communication through the loud speaker anyway. So he twist the volume to maximum, put his headset away, and we concentrated on the landing. It was a safe one, we could even hear passengers clapping away in delight.

Moments later the engines were shut down and we tidy up the cockpit as a set of pilots would be taking over. It was then when the captain switch on the light inside the cockpit (when landing, the light inside the cockpit is always off, like when you drive your car at night). As we turn to face each other, to shake hands and compliment each other for the safe flight, I just couldn't help laughing my head off.

Sticking out of the captain's ear, was his earpiece, all by itself...