Are We Missing One Sense?

[LauraE51]

With ANR headsets, i'm wondering if the additional quiet actually impairs our abilities while flying and/or landing.

As one who only drives stick-shift cars, i don't need to look at the tach to know it's time to shift to a higher or lower gear. I can hear and feel what's going on with my engine. So, i wonder that when i have an ANR headset on if i'm losing one of my senses, particularly during landing when additional auditory input might give me more clues about my plane's speed.

Do any of you turn off ANR at times or even move an ear cuff off your ear to increase your listening skills?

 

[Henning]

I have never noticed any impairment. While the levels are all greatly reduced, none of the information I derive from sound and vibration is eliminated. Once you are tuned to what to listen for, any level beyond threshold level is unnecessary.

Would you shift more accurately if you had no muffler?

 

[LauraE51]

Who knows, but having returned to flying last summer after 42 years off, i have many more years of flying w/o a headset than with one, so when this came to mind today, i thought i'd check in with the community.

 

[Matthew]

My experience with ANR is that sound pressure levels in certain frequencies are reduced, not eliminated. You just re-tune yourself - the sounds you are used to are still there.

 

[TUPilot]

With ANR headsets, i'm wondering if the additional quiet actually impairs our abilities while flying and/or landing.

The ANR seems to "clean up" noise in a way that makes it easier to hear various noises--everything from RPM changes to obstacle warnings from a GPS are easier for me to hear with an ANR headset.

There are probably cases where an ANR set blanks out something you want to hear, but I think on the whole there are many more cases where it eliminates sounds you don't care about so you can hear more important stuff.

 

[WingNut42]

With ANR headsets, i'm wondering if the additional quiet actually impairs our abilities while flying and/or landing.

As one who only drives stick-shift cars, i don't need to look at the tach to know it's time to shift to a higher or lower gear. I can hear and feel what's going on with my engine. So, i wonder that when i have an ANR headset on if i'm losing one of my senses, particularly during landing when additional auditory input might give me more clues about my plane's speed.

Do any of you turn off ANR at times or even move an ear cuff off your ear to increase your listening skills?

When they first came around it seemed like this was a common concern, and I admit one I had myself until I flew with a pair. I have never had an issue. In some ways I think they smooth the sound and actually make it easier to find certain discrepancies.

 

[Rigged4Flight]

Fly without a headset long enough and the hearing you have left won't be enough to do you any good.

 

[Stewartb]

I wear headsets primarily for hearing protection. Quality of sound is secondary. My ANR requirement includes good passive noise attenuation. I prefer a reduction in noise over a manipulation of noise. The combination is better yet.

My first ANR headsets were Sennheiser. I liked them but ultimately wanted Bluetooth connectivity so I stepped up to Zulu 2s. I'll never forget the first flight. The Zulus were so much quieter that it was disconcerting. Almost disorienting. The absence of familiar sound was hard to reconcile with all other senses being normal. But after a couple of flights that level of quiet was the new normal. I don't miss the noise. I can still tell what's going on.

 

[Jay Honeck]

Fly without a headset long enough and the hearing you have left won't be enough to do you any good.

We've got the Lightspeed PFX's -- arguably the quietest headset ever made. We use them in the back seat of the RV-8A, which has been compared to the "hammers of hell" for loudness. (Something to do with the bubble canopy acting like a parabolic reflector, focusing all the sound waves from those straight pipes on your head.)

When I flew with them in the front seat (which is strangely quieter), and they went into what I call "their SuperQuiet mode", all I could hear of the engine was through bone conduction. It was really strange, but I could "hear" the vibration of the engine and airframe through my spine.

So, even with PFX's , the sound is still there. It's just getting to us differently, and you must learn how to interpret what you're hearing. (We now use regular Zulus in the front seat, and the PFX's stay in the back.)

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

I have never read of an asrs report of "____ happened and I blame the enc headsets"; just another datapoint in the discussion.