Goggles for Open-Cockpit Flying
Well, I've posted about leather jackets,
I've posted about silk scarves....time to
talk about goggles.
First off, do you need them?
It really depends on how sensitive your eyes are, and how your airplane
is set up. I find it very irritating when draft flutters my
eyelashes, and my eyes seem to dry out quickly. If you're
not as
sensitive (for instance, if you wear contacts), you may not need
goggles
as bad.
The other factor is how your cockpit is set up, and the size and shape
of your windshield. You might not really have a lot of draft by
your head...or you might have cascades of air twirling around your baby
blues.
Most goggles have the drawback of giving you a bit of "tunnel
vision"...they tend to block your peripheral vision. It depends a
bit whether you wear normally wear glasses. Most of
the goggles I've worn give me vision slightly beyond the frame of my
glasses...where I normally can't see anything, anyway. Some
goggles still give you good peripheral vision...check out the picture
of me to the right.
But if you don't wear glasses, normally, you can probably find some of
the bubble-type skydiver glasses or head-strap type sunglasses designed
for active sports. Here's a shot of Drew Fidoe in
"Stringbag". He
says, "In my Fly Baby, my non-standard windscreen affords excellent
protection from the breeze, and I normally fly with the goggles up,
only wearing them when the temperature drops to about freezing as my
eyes tend to dry out. I normally use a pair of tinted sport
goggles in
the Fly Baby, a thoughtful posting gift from crew-mates of my last
ship, as they double as sunglasses."
Drew is also doing some test-flying for a Pietenpol
owner. That
plane doesn't have as good of wind protection as Stringbag. "I
use a
pair of RAF goggles, (either Mark VI or Mk VIII, can't remember) when
flying the Pietenpol for maximum protection'" says Drew. "I find
I need them
in the Piet any time the engine is running as the pilot is quite
exposed."
So...there's a wide variety of options.
Over the years, I've used five different types of goggles, from varied
sources, with varied results. I have three main criteria:
They have to keep the draft off my eyes, they have to be fairly easy
to put on over my glasses, and they have to look good. By
"look good," I mean, they have to be somewhat vintage in appearance.
The middle criteria is important, especially tied in with the last
one. There are sources that sell nice replica of WWII RAF
goggles. However, most historical goggles won't work with
glasses...because military pilots had to have eyesight good enough
that they didn't need glasses! So if you wear glasses, be very
careful when you buy goggles.
My Goggle History
My original set of goggles are those I'm wearing on the first picture
on this web page They met all of my criteria. Those were
ski goggles, purchased at a local sporting-goods store. They
worked pretty well. But like just about all goggles, the lenses
are made of plastic, and they tend to get scratched over the
years. The elastic was getting a bit loose, too. When I
bought Moonraker, I figured it was time to replace the goggles.
I really wanted
something that had a real, solid, military look to them. Someone
suggested a motorcycle shop, so I went by and found a pair that looked
pretty good and fit over my glasses. If I remember correctly,
they cost about $40 (mid-90s).
These were so-so. The air seal wasn't that good...it had a bit of
padded cloth for a seal, instead of a strip of foam weatherstripping,
and they tended to leak a bit. where the strap attached.
I had a big of a surprise on the first (and only) time I flew at
night...the "break" in the lenses
caused weird lighting affects. When my strobe fired, the
wing would light up, and the light would refract in the break and
make it look like there was another strobe close by. When I
taxied on the ground, the runway or taxiway lights in my peripheral
vision took an abrupt turn when they reached the break...a bit
distracting.
The final straw was when I showed them to a buddy. "Looks like a
SCUBA face mask," he said. I realized he was right. They
were big enough to fit my glasses comfortably, but they were really a
lot taller than military goggles had been.
So...back to the drawing board.
I had such good luck with the ski goggles the first time around that I
went back to the sporting-goods store to get another. All they
had were
swoopy-looking ones in multiple colors, with the manufacturer's
names molded in bright contrast, and multicolor headbands.
Me, I just wanted a set of plain, round goggles.
I really wanted to replace the motorcycle ones, so I
bought a mid-priced set of ski goggles (about $35). They fit
nice, but they
certainly didn't meet my 'look good" criteria. They had the
manufacturer name ("SCOTT") molded in white across the bridge
(for
the record, my name ISN'T "Scott"), and a red, white, and blue strap.
The strap was easy to fix..I bought some 1" elastic from the
local sewing store, plus some of the little plastic fittings to make
them adjustable.
For the name, I took a single-edge razor blade to the molded letters
and shaved them down. Really wasn't that hard to do. It
still was somewhat readable, but at least it was no longer in glaring
white across the black frame. It wasn't noticeable unless
someone was real close, and if they're that close, I've got the goggles
propped up atop my helmet, anyway.
These worked quite nicely. They sealed well, they slipped on over
my glasses easy, and the modifications brought them at least into the
"acceptable" category.
Was I satisfied? Of course not.
I still wanted a set of military-type
goggles. I was wandering through a military-surplus store a few
years later, and found a set of US Army "Goggles, Sun, Wind, and
Dust." The neat thing was, they seemed very similar to the Army
Air Force's B-8 goggle, one of the types our pilots wore during
WWII. See this
picture of WWII P-38 pilot Ed Baquet,
for example.
The neat thing was the price: Only $20. You can find them
online at several sources, such as the US
Cavalry Store.
They are just about perfect. They look good, they seal
well. The only drawback is that they were
a bit small, and it was a bit awkward getting them over my
glasses. Yes, they are
designed to fit over glasses...MILITARY-ISSUE glasses. My
civilian-style frames were a bit bigger than what the goggles were
designed
for. I eventually got a pair of sunglasses with smaller frames
just for flying, but even then they needed a bit of fiddling when
putting the glasses on.
Finally, I found a goggle that meets all my
criteria: the "Rallye Goggle"
from Flightsuits.com (scroll to the very bottom of the page).
They look good, with a two-lens design that fits
easily over my glasses, and they seal with no problem. The lenses
are actually two pieces of plastic with an air gap between them to
reduce fogging, instead of the light thin plastic of most goggles.
The only drawback is their price: About $65. However, they
do sell replacement lenses for them, so it's easy to restore the
operation without spending a lot of money.
Recommendations
Are you in the market for goggles? Buy a pair of the
military-surplus ones. The odds are, they'll work for you.
I like my Rallye Goggles, but the mil-surplus ones are just about as
good. I wore my old ones on a recent flight, and other than a bit
of fiddling to get them over my glasses, they worked great.
If you can't stand the reduction in peripheral vision,
you've got three choices. If you don't wear glasses, skydiver
goggles would be a good pick. These usually have little or no
frame, and are designed to fit snugly against the face. If you do
wear glasses, you can go with ski goggles (which generally have a lot
of wraparound to help the skiers).
Or, if money is no object, you can do what a lot of the old-time pilots
did, and get prescription goggles:
http://www.prescriptiongoggles.com/
Ron Wanttaja
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