Original Item: Only One Available. This is a late 1950s era United States Navy USN Helicopter Flight Helmet type APH-5 Helmet. It has the correct early type thick roam rubber edge roll, and the base color is white, now painted over with U.S. Navy gold. Wings have been pasted to each side of the top with NAVY below it as shown. It still has the internal padding, however there are no avionics installed. It also does have a retractable visor installed, which can be controlled by sliding the circular tab on top of the helmet back and forth.

The helmet is in overall good shape with some flaws. There is a crack in the helmet just below the tab to adjust the visor, right in between the A and V in Navy. The visor still adjusts fine, but caution should be advised when adjusting it. The buckles are all in good working order. There doesn’t appear to be any maker’s mark. Overall a great attractive helmet from the 1950’s/Vietnam War Era that is ready for further research and display! The size appears to be Medium/Large. There is a small attachment wire for the headset, but the headset is absent.

One of the headphones on the interior can be removed from the styrofoam, and on the back of it reads Earphone H-143/AIC Roanwell Corp.

The US Army introduced their first flying helmet, the APH-5A or APH-5 Quartermaster helmet in 1959. It was an adapted version of the US Navy Aircrew Protective Helmet no. 5 (APH-5). The change was mainly in the communications system as the US Army used the same impedance standard as the US Air Force. With the introduction of the APH-5A the number of head injuries incurred during US Army aircraft accidents was reduced by half compared to the number of head injuries incurred before helmets were used.

The early examples of the APH-5A had the same thick foam rubber edge roll as the US Navy APH-5 and usually came in white color. Later examples had thin black rubber edge beading and usually came in olive drab color.