On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 17:23:58 -0800 (PST), wrote:

For you open cockpit flyers: what are the RIGHT goggles to get?

I was reading in Neil William's aerobatics book that he would always
take goggles with him -- even in closed cockpit. Why? You never really
know if a bird or other accident might take out the windshield. In
fact, there is a fairly recent thread about a mid-air in which the
windshield of a C152 was essentially knocked out but the plane still
managed to land. Good time to have the goggs -- if you are in a
position to put them on afterward.

That's maybe pretty damned rare. If you've had your windshield knocked
out I'd like to hear about it.

Mostly, it's a question for the open cockpit guys.

Having flown almost exclusively in open cockpits for the past 20+ years, I know
a bit about them. Over the years, I've bought them from sporting goods stores,
military surplus outlets, motorcycle stores, and aviation suppliers. The best
goggle I've found is the "Rallye" from Flight Suits, Limited.

http://www.flightsuits.com/open_goggle.html

Seals well, fits over glasses (as long as they aren't outlandishly large), and
looks good.

In second place is a plain ol' set of US Military surplus desert goggles. They
are almost as good as the Flightsuits.com ones, but sell for about a quarter of
the price. You can buy those at most of online paramilitary/police outfitters
like the US Cavalry store.

http://www.uscav.com/Productinfo.asp...5492&TabID=548

Some reviews think they move around too much, that's probably when you have to
run and jump and do Army-type stuff wearing them. I never had any problem in
the cockpit. The nice thing about them is that they're almost a perfect match
for the WWII USAAF goggle.

Ski goggles work pretty good, but they're generally fairly ugly. I've done
stuff like scrape off raised lettering and replace multicolor bands with plain
black elastic.

Motorcycle shops often carry the crome-and-leather units that do look a lot like
the '30s/'40s style goggles. Here I am modeling a set:

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/stories/ice5.gif

This didn't have the best seal, since the goggle/face interface was a piece of
padded leather. The angle style like this give a definitive break in your
visual field...not much of a problem during the day, but it does weird things to
the runway lights coming by at night.

A major factor is whether you wear glasses...the best-looking goggles are
generally too small/sit too close to the face to allow you to wear glasses
underneath. It's possible to get prescription goggles....

http://www.prescriptiongoggles.com/

....if you really have to have that classic look.

We recently had a discussion along this line on the Fly Baby mailing list. See:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flybabylist/message/7605

....and follow the thread.

A friend of mine wears a full military-style helmet when he flies his Boredom
Fighter. It gives him maximum protection in the case of an accident, and the
face shield doesn't block his peripheral vision like goggles will.

And if you're flying open-cockpit, don't forget the scarf!

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/stories/scarves.html

Ron Wanttaja