Protecting your Hearing

[Riper Snifle]

At my Flight Physical, there was one recruit who had to go for more testing on his hearing after the first test showed some hearing loss. The further tests showed that he was ok and he is proceeding forward on his application. This got me thinking though, what are the risks of losing your hearing through out marine training? Between OCS and TBS there are certainly a lot of booms (from small arms and howitzers to air strikes) that could hurt your hearing. Granted none of my recruiters are deaf, but hearing standards are higher for pilots. Has anyone been around people that have lost hearing during training? What did they do, were they medicaled out? What are effective way's of protecting your hearing? One recruit that I went through the hearing test with claimed he just pushed the button every five seconds and got a perfect score. Is that true? If so it would be effective in any hearing tests in the future. Just looking for some information on keeping an air contract going through all the fun and hardships of marine officer training. thank you for any comments.

 

[zab1001]

One recruit that I went through the hearing test with claimed he just pushed the button every five seconds and got a perfect score.

I sincerely hope you didn't fall for that line of pure horsesh!t.

 

[Riper Snifle]

No, the rcruit said it after I took the test, but I felt like asking anyways. If you push the button when there is no beep, does that take away from your score? What happens when a person pushes the button too many times? If there is no penalty for pushing the button too many times then I certainly see the benefit of "when in doubt push the button".

 

[phrogdriver]

It's an automated program. If you hit it with no tone, a booming recorded voice says,"YOU ARE PUSHING THE BUTTON WHEN THERE IS NO TONE. PUSH THE BUTTON ONLY WHEN YOU HEAR A TONE." After straining your ears to hear the softest beeps, this voice comes at you with the volume at 11. I just about crapped myself. I don't think you are "penalized," but it makes you do that frequency sequence over until it's satisfied you're not faking. I personally don't want to spend my life in a soundproof box.

 

[gaijin6423]

It depends on the testing machine. The new ones aren't usually that bad, but every once and a while you'll get tested in one of the old ones. If you push the button more than 2-3 times when there's no tone, the Voice of God comes over your headset and says, "YOU ARE PUSHING THE BUTTON WHEN NO SOUND IS BEING PLAYED." This, of course, causes your ears to ring for the next two days, and the test restarts. You wind up not pushing the button at all, because The Voice has blasted your frigging eardrums.

Seriously, though, if you want to protect your hearing, go to medical and get some of those nice plugs to wear under your helmet. My onwing here in HTs cranks the ICS volume up to the point where my nose bleeds if I don't have the plugs in, so I have little choice.

Edit: FINALLY someone else whose heard The Voice! And everyone else thought I was just laying down some BS...

 

[mules83]

There is a prof. at ERAU who is a retired navy pilot who told us that he had a slight ear ring. He was saying for the hearing test, he hummed a song in his head and pushed the button at the tune of the song to pass the test.

 

[Brett327]

At my Flight Physical, there was one recruit who had to go for more testing on his hearing after the first test showed some hearing loss. The further tests showed that he was ok and he is proceeding forward on his application. This got me thinking though, what are the risks of losing your hearing through out marine training? Between OCS and TBS there are certainly a lot of booms (from small arms and howitzers to air strikes) that could hurt your hearing. Granted none of my recruiters are deaf, but hearing standards are higher for pilots. Has anyone been around people that have lost hearing during training? What did they do, were they medicaled out? What are effective way's of protecting your hearing? One recruit that I went through the hearing test with claimed he just pushed the button every five seconds and got a perfect score. Is that true? If so it would be effective in any hearing tests in the future. Just looking for some information on keeping an air contract going through all the fun and hardships of marine officer training. thank you for any comments.

And BTW, hearing standards aren't higher for aviators per se. Now, I can't speak to the particulars of Marine training, but I've been flying for 15+ years, worked on flight decks, etc and have no appreciable deviation from my baseline audiogram. I take only normal precautions, don't wear foamies while I'm flying and have never used double hearing protection. Some people get all anxious about it and go to the extreme - not me.

Brett

 

[Gatordev]

You'll definitely have hearing loss over time. There's basically two standards. One is the "you can still fly" standard, and the other is the personal baseline standard. You can fail your personal baseline and still be with in regs overall. If you fail the baseline, you come back and retest. If you fail again, you get re-baselined (and basically have a disability claim when you get out of the service). I failed a baseline in flight school, but when I came back, I passed, so nothing was reset. Sometimes I come close, mostly because the insanity box makes you think you're hearing things, but overall, I've stayed w/ the baseline. I attribute it to wearing earplugs all the time in the aircraft. I know guys who don't, and you can tell they've had some damage (both medically, and just when you're talking to them normally).

EDIT:

And after reading Brett's post, I'm speaking more towards helo cockpit noise. But I know Brett has spent some time under a -60 tranny <insert gay joke> also, so maybe it's just good genes.

 

[A4sForever]

Back-in-the-day ..... and as recent as my last FAA 1st class medical 6 months ago --- it all depended on the state-of-the-art*ness of the machine --- you COULD push the button @ every five seconds --- no "voices" --- and get a perfect score. I did it in the military as recently (?) as @ 1978 at a NASA facility and got a perfect hearing score --- even though I was tone-deaf at 4000 cps in my left ear as a result of waving on USS BOAT with no ear protection. The flight surgeon figured me out and "looked the other way" as he said he'd seen it before and my hearing would return. He was right. Had to hear those engines .... and they killed your left ear @ 4000 cycles ... :icon_mi_1

Eyes .... for @ 1965 and for @ 15 years afterward:

KCNRD .... HKSOV ..... that was 20/20 ..... :icon_mi_1

 

[Crowbar]

I also have heard THE VOICE OF OUR LORD THE AUDIOGRAM MACHINE. Just like phrog said, you sit there in extreme silence then all of a sudden Spinal Tap is blowing your eardrums out through your nose.
I've been on the 'hearing conservation program' for years and my hearing seems to come and go. I see a lot of people wear foamies for a day or two before the test just to make sure they pass. I mock them, they sneer at me. I mean, come on, I'm a drummer and I don't have noticeable hearing loss. Just be smart about what you do. If you're around something loud, wear hearing protection. As for me, I hate loud noises so I'm always the first one to put foamies in/mouse ears on...

 

[virtu050]

any p-3 bubbas use the BOSE noise reduction headphones?

 

[Penguin]

As a convert from the Dark Side known as Navy Medicine, I can tell you there is a lot of difference in audio booths. Part of my former job was to certify those things annually to prove that a reliable test could be performed in them. The ideal is an anechoic chamber. No noise gets in from the outside and any noise made inside gets absorbed. Unfortunately, most aren't nearly that good. Some were so bad while I was testing, I swear I could hear the operator scratching his balls outside the booth. Often we'd get complaints because people thought the booths were "not fair" so we'd check it out. Then we'd shut one down because it was out of standard, meaning the aviators couldn't get their tests done, so we'd get yelled at some more. I finally decided to He** with it and switched to aviation so I could do the b!tching!

 

[Schnugg]

Don't sit next to an @ssclown coughing in the booth.

I always wore ear plugs under my flight helmet. Some cockpits can be pretty noisy. Also always wear them around turning jets engines, even turbo-props.

You may not notice hearing loss today, but if you abuse it, you will notice it in the 15-20 years.

Have lost no hearing over 20 years.

r/
G

 

[jamnww]

I always wore ear plugs under my flight helmet. Some cockpits can be pretty noisy. Also always wear them around turning jets engines, even turbo-props.

ear plugs under your flight helmet eh...hmmm...might have to try that. Does it prevent you from hearing radio calls?

 

[Gatordev]

No, it actually can make it easier to understand, because the foamies filter out a lot of the high end hiss and noise (wind, static, turbines, etc).