Using ANR in the 121 world

M

MattB

New Member
Heard it straight from our director of flight standards and training that ANR headsets will be outlawed in 121 cockpits very very soon. Anyone else hear this?
 
The FAA is worried that a faulty power supply, I guess a battery pack, could expire at a not so good moment. I couldn't believe it when he told me (he noticed I use bose). He told me that he would double check and sure enough the next day he told me that yes, in fact it would be happening and rather shortly.
 
If that were to be true...

that would suck pretty bad. I just got my headset and I wouldn't want to go back to using anything else. I, too, am curious as to why this might be?
 
MattB said:
The FAA is worried that a faulty power supply, I guess a battery pack, could expire at a not so good moment. I couldn't believe it when he told me (he noticed I use bose). He told me that he would double check and sure enough the next day he told me that yes, in fact it would be happening and rather shortly.
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Even without the ANR though it still works, and could get you by...
 
Odd.

They work with or without batteries, plus many ANR headsets don't require them.

Tell the inspector that he ought to work on banning canned carbonated beverages. You know, one can explode when you're opening it, gum up the flight controls and unleash sticky high fructose corn syrup hell.
 
I know I know, the first thing out of my mouth was, "but they still work when the are not turned on." I don't get it and if it didn't come literally from the guy that writes the rules for our comapny, I wouldn't have believed it.
 
POI's are known to go a little 'rogue' sometimes and make up their own rules.

Remind me to tell you a "Chet" story from my regional days! ;)
 
My batteries go out on me once in a while. No big deal, things just get louder and more annoying, just like they are all the time with a passive set. I go a couple of flights without, till I have a moment to dig through my stuff and find fresh ones.

Perhaps he meant they are trying to outlaw the hybrid sets people make by mating a set of Bose noise canceling headphones with a aftermarket microphone. Those do stop working when the batteries die. I see them from time to time. We are told to always carry a fresh set of batteries if we use that set.

Outlaw them all? Kind of far fetched if you ask me. Not sure if I completely believe that one. All of us turboprop pilots would eventually go deaf. :)
 
Well, I certainly hope he was mistaken, but he really seemed and sounded like it was official. On a side note, I was looking at getting a pair of telex 750's in case this turns out to be true... anybody use these?
 
You might be thinking of the Bose UFlyMike setup.

I'm using a pair of Telex 750's in the EMB-145 with ear plugs under them. It works pretty well. All I wnat to do now is get a pair of custom molded ear plugs so that they're a little bit more comfortable on longer legs.
 
Wasn't there something in the news a few months ago about FAA worrying that ANR headsets could block out cockpit alarms and such?? Maybe that's why.

Or maybe it's just a rumot. What does the director of flight standards know anyway? :)
 
Hmmm. Even with noise canceling I can hear alarms and aural warnings just fine. Some chimes go to the speaker and the headset anyway. Is there any noise canceling that is powerful enough to dampen alarm chimes or verbal aural warnings?
 
We just got a line added to our GOM saying headsets must be TSO approved. No fanfare was made of it and people are still using whatever cobbled together mess they used to be using, TSO approval or not.

Perhaps that's what was being talked about?
 
2 different issues depending on who your POI is.

Some POIs are worried about certain frequency cockpit aural alerts being blocked by the ANR. The one POI I know had an issue with this could provide more information on what frequencies and what aurals, but that they were on a soap box about that.

The second one is the TSO issue. I think this one started at SWA and I have no idea what happened.

So far our POI hasn't said anything so I'm not worried about it. Then again, I'm too cheap to get an ANR headset so I survive with the 750+earplugs combo.
 
Lee D said:
Hmmm. Even with noise canceling I can hear alarms and aural warnings just fine. Some chimes go to the speaker and the headset anyway. Is there any noise canceling that is powerful enough to dampen alarm chimes or verbal aural warnings?
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my Stratus 50d has 50db of noise canceling (even more at different freqs) and i can still hear the Gear horn and Stall Horn just fine
 
On that note, What headsets out there TSO'd versus non TSO'd?

I realize the "strap on mike" ones are not TSO'd. Are 'most' headsets sold as "aviation headsets" TSO'd?
 
The CRJ is really only approved for 2 specific headset models anyways... neither of which are worn by most pilots.
 
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