I grew up flying with my folks in noisy old airplanes. Many, many hours in radial engines with no hearing protection. I have since flown myself a couple of thousand hours in mostly noisy old airplane, including many more hours in radials and didn’t really start using any hearing protection until mid-80s. I also shot small arms a great deal starting as a kid and never used hearing protection until going into the Army in 1981. I’m guessing 20 years shooting howitzers in the Field Artillery. I fired over 60,000 rounds in my first four years, as a Lieutenant. After 20 year I was likely over 100,000 rounds. That is an unusually high number, but I did two tours shooting for the artillery school house train all Army and Marine artillery officers and forward observers. The big difference it, once in the Artillery, I started wearing hearing protection.
My tinnitus is pretty constant but not too loud, but I can still pretty well, which surprised the docs during my Army retirement physical hearing test.
My dad was an d school crop duster...back when it really was dust. A windshield on a duster caused a low pressure sucking the dust into the cockpit. The solution was removing the windshield. In 10,000+ ag hours, he never wore hearing protection or a helmet. In the Stearman he wore only goggles. Engine noise coupled with 100mph slipstream destroyed his hearing. He was pretty hard of hearing by the time he passed in 2000.
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