X wing helmet ear pads

[Mara Jade's Father]

I used these for my Porkins helmet build:

https://www.flighthelmet.com/product/MSHP-0757.html

I just ordered this surplus set of earcups.

Flight Helmet Vintage 1964 Earcups, APH- series, brown leather , New in Box. | eBay

Still fresh, foam has not broken down, leather is decent. 1 lead tube of glue, all dried out. 1 pr Leather earpads with matching polystyrene backing. 2 plastic spacers, 4 cork type spacers screws and instruction sheet.

www.ebay.com

That's what I use in mine (a real set and a replica set). I could not find a link so I was not sure if anyone had them available anymore. Nice find guys.

 

[TazMan2000]

If you don't need authentic, look for brown earphone pads on Amazon and save yourself a few bucks.

TazMan2000

 

[scottwinny]

If you don't need authentic, look for brown earphone pads on Amazon and save yourself a few bucks.

TazMan2000

Toying with the idea of making my own

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

If you wanted to do something on the cheap, you could simply buy the padded parts that go one the ear cup. They don't even have to be flight helmet related, safety, audio, etc... and month them on something thick like a piece of thick foam. Thick enough to press the pads against your head.

Another interesting take is what eFx did with their helmets...

If you notice, there padding on the side is more like side padding and less of a ear cup. Notice how large they are so that the padding extend all the way down to the bottom of the helmet. It's in this low area that most people think they see the ear cups. And that just supports my "it's a helmet liner and not ear cups theory as ear cups do not drop down that low.

What Efx has done tends to replicator's the look of Luke's padding in Return of the Jedi (which is not include/visible in any other movie). Note the missing mic too.

I'm not sure what the case is here. They could have just used some new type of padding/liner to keep the helmet to fit.

Or something else that I just started to wonder about. Does anyone else think that they might have used a size XL for Luke's Return of the Jedi helmet as opposed to a size L for his other helmets. It just looks bigger. If anyone could do some sort of overlay, I would like to know for sure. It might just be a trick of the eyes with the different shadows.

 

[division 6]

Maybe he lost some weight and his face is thinner.

 

[division 6]

Found this while looking through my speeder pilot photos.

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

Found this while looking through my speeder pilot photos.

I've seen those. I believe they probably had a mix of helmets in production that still existed from A New Hope and some made for The Empire Strikes Back. In either case, I think that if there was any old liner inside from the older helmets, they were removed (same way that they probably removed the hose attachment from the suits so they could wear a jacket). If they were just made, there were kept bare. In this case, most these helmets were never going to be featured on film and even if worn, they needed to have room for the padded skull caps they were wearing.

I think anything that has that limited black padding was for helmets that were going to or did have some screen time and was needed for functional purposes. But I think a lot of those are just empty shells.

That is basically my long winded way of saying that based on production needs, I don't think it offers too much clarity about ear pads except to say that maybe there is no set standard across the original trilogy run.

Let me fully acknowledge this is all theory. No proof at all for any of this but I have thought about it a lot over the past twenty years and that is what I came up with.

 

[Edraven99]

My RS ANH Red 5 upgraded with vintage APH ear pads

 

[Synz314]

Here they are inside my EFX helmet.

 

[DJb1138]

Here they are inside my EFX helmet.

View attachment 1311990View attachment 1311991View attachment 1312005

Any chance on snagging the measurements/dimensions of those earcups and pads, man?

 

[Synz314]

Any chance on snagging the measurements/dimensions of those earcups and pads, man?

Approximately 6x4.5x2 in inches.

 

[AnthonyD2199]

I just ordered this surplus set of earcups.

Flight Helmet Vintage 1964 Earcups, APH- series, brown leather , New in Box. | eBay

Still fresh, foam has not broken down, leather is decent. 1 lead tube of glue, all dried out. 1 pr Leather earpads with matching polystyrene backing. 2 plastic spacers, 4 cork type spacers screws and instruction sheet.

www.ebay.com

These Ear Cups seem to still be available, are they accurate to the type used in the X Wing helmets?

 

[DJb1138]

Approximately 6x4.5x2 in inches.

Thanks man! I appreciate you measuring them for me.

 

[ggriffaw]

Looks like there is some kind of liner in Luke's ANH helmet. I guess it is hard to see in most shots because of the shadows.

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

Looks like there is some kind of liner in Luke's ANH helmet. I guess it is hard to see in most shots because of the shadows.

View attachment 1762044

That’s been my belief all along. I think the A New Hope all had some sort of liner in the helmet that at least ran inside the helmet along the sides. In some helmets, this liner tended to protrude away from the helmet and could be seen slight from the front. This partial visibility is what many have mistaken for ear cups.

 

[ggriffaw]

Are there any good options for the ANH liner look? The earpads in most helmets look way too thick to me, especially on ANH helmets.

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

Are there any good options for the ANH liner look? The earpads in most helmets look way too thick to me, especially on ANH helmets.

A lot of people like this…

https://www.etsy.com/listing/610749173/x-wing-helmet-liner?click_key=86cc07cb48ae35ff4f4ecac9c3a48e5a065ee8f8%3A610749173&click_sum=d9d74ed4&ref=user_profile

There are different color options.

I’ve myself have used the small modular gel type pads you can put in tactical helmets. There are a lot of options on Amazon for helmet pads

 

[ywingfighter]

Hi everyone, I've dedicated myself to an older project. In the past there have been discussions in various forums about the padding of the ANH Hero X-Wing helmets. Most people are of the opinion that APH-6 earcups were used here. I always had big doubts about this because the contours of these pads didn't fit at all in many pictures. At some point I found a nice b/w picture of Gold Leader and I think that you can see that it's not an APH-6 earpads. I thought about it and thought, well, the film was made in the UK and military equipment from all sorts of countries was used. Back then there were military shops on every corner where you could buy old equipment at reasonable prices. And now look at what I came across... I'm 100% sure that RAF Type F/G doughnuts were used for the ANH Hero X-Wing helmets. They were available in various shades of color and were used until the 80s. For the ESB and ROTJ where used in some Helmets custom made paddings.

 

[ggriffaw]

Does anyone have a photo of the cast foam liner used for the ROTJ helmets mentioned in the below thread?

The complete evolution of Luke's X-wing helmet.

The complete evolution of Lukes X-wing helmet. Hi fellow X-wing helmet fans! As some of you might know I was commissioned a little more then a year ago to paint both the ANH and ESB masters for Efx Collectibles Luke X-wing helmet. Now that both of these releases are about to finally find homes...

www.therpf.com

 

[ggriffaw]

Hi everyone, I've dedicated myself to an older project. In the past there have been discussions in various forums about the padding of the ANH Hero X-Wing helmets. Most people are of the opinion that APH-6 earcups were used here. I always had big doubts about this because the contours of these pads didn't fit at all in many pictures. At some point I found a nice b/w picture of Gold Leader and I think that you can see that it's not an APH-6 earpads. I thought about it and thought, well, the film was made in the UK and military equipment from all sorts of countries was used. Back then there were military shops on every corner where you could buy old equipment at reasonable prices. And now look at what I came across... I'm 100% sure that RAF Type F/G doughnuts were used for the ANH Hero X-Wing helmets. They were available in various shades of color and were used until the 80s. For the ESB and ROTJ where used in some Helmets custom made paddings.

Thanks for the photos and the research. That is the best look of the ear pads I have seen. Now to try to find some of those ear pads.