Saturday, July 14, 2018

Dad's APH-5 Flight Helmet


Spent some time restoring Dad's APH-5 old flight helmet today. The helmet is from around 1957. In the early 70's Dad had stripped the helmet of the headphones and microphone for use with his ham radio. And then the visor was broken and the knob to retain it lost, probably due to my playing with it as a kid!

I was able to source original replacement parts on eBay and from a helpful person on the forum at usmilitariaforum.com. I disassembled the helmet cleaned it slightly and then carefully soldered some wires and fitted the pieces back together. It will be a great display piece!

More pictures:








And here is a funny card Dad received during his helicopter training. It appears they handed these out after the student mastered hovering and some other maneuvers.

Even the back is a little strange! This must have had some strange meaning to the pilots...