Original Item: Only One Available. The USAF P-3 flight helmet standardized in 1951 was developed to add wind-blast and sun-glare protection to the P-1 style helmet. It was standard issue for pilots during the Korean War. The helmet is in overall fair condition with the liner, headset (poor condition earpieces), tinted visor and oxygen hose.

This is a great Cold War era original “Jet Pilot” helmet in wonderful complete condition!

The type P-3 flying helmet
In 1950, a further modification was undertaken to add wind-blast protection to the P-1 style helmet. With improvements in aircraft ejection seat capabilities, pilots could no longer safely attempt a manual 'bail-out' over the side of a stricken aircraft. Speeds and performance capabilities of the new jet turbine powered aircraft were simply too great to insure aircrew survival in such extreme situations. The old B-8 rubber framed goggles were thus replaced by a new rigid, side-latching external visor assembly. Rubber goggles tended to be blown off of a helmet during an ejection and the new visor assembly, while still far from perfect, went a long way towards helping insure helmet and mask retention against the effects of severe wind-blast that were a routine hazard of emergency ejection at high speed. This early rigid, vertically articulated visor had two manually secured positions--full-up or full-down. It employed a unique sort of ratcheted pivot mechanism with each one of the two latches securing to a pinned triangular mounting plate positioned roughly at about the area of the helmet's temple on both sides. Springs were used to pull the helmet visor into the full-up position when it was lifted free of the temple pins by positive forward and upward hand motion. This visor assembly was designated the PN 51C3632 assembly. Of central interest is the fact that any P-1 helmet (P-1A or P-1B) to which this rigid visor assembly was added, automatically became technically re-designated as a P-3 helmet. The P-3 was otherwise identical in all respects to the P-1A and P-1B helmets. As before, all older P-1A/B helmets were upgraded to the new type designation as circumstances permitted, and helmets manufactured after the TO change came into force were produced by assembly at the factory as P-3s.

An item that is worth noting in passing is that due to the constraints of the Korean War on supplies in the combat areas, repairs to the headset cushion assemblies of P-1 and P-3 type helmets were frequently made using salvaged or cut-out kapok-filled chamois leather-covered cushion 'doughnuts' removed from AN-H-15 and A-10 type fabric helmets.

Although the cushions were not absolutely identical in every respect to those used in the rigid P-series units, they were nearly so, and this explains the discovery of what appear to be AN-H-15 & A-10 type ear cushion units fitted to early P series helmets that were used in and around Korea from 1951 through 1953. For this reason it is therefore not technically incorrect to 'restore' a helmet by replacing old, worn-out P-helmet earphone cushions with AN-H-15 and A-10 type units today, when rebuilding these early items of headgear. There was, after all, an expedient historical and practical precedent for the practice!

Because of its superior wind-blast protection, and also because of its additional sun-glare protective function, the Type P-3 Flying Helmet was mandated for use in all high-speed, high performance jet fighters and bombers. Somewhat later slight modifications of the basic 'side-latch' rigid external visor were adopted. The differences between the original version and the later two versions are not readily apparent until helmets fitted with each version are compared side by side. The principal modification was two-fold: the protrusive 'tab' located at the top of the visor mounting bar was done away with and the length of the side latch securing arm was slightly lengthened. In the case of the latter modification, this small change permitted the visor to swing up completely out of the peripheral visual area of the pilot's face, whereas the original ratchet-securing articulation permitted part of the lower lens on both sides to slightly obscure the upper periphery of the pilot's field of view. [It is worthwhile to note that the rigid shaded visor lens used with the P-3 type side-latched visor came in three sizes (small, medium, and large); the required size was determined as being equal to the distance between the top center of the visor and its lower nose-bridge point and had nothing to do with the curvilinear lateral measurement of the visor lens itself (as has been sometimes assumed). The correct visor size for a wearer was therefore established by the personal equipment specialist with a ruler, after the correct mask had been fitted to the helmet. The visor mounting bar assembly was referred to in official T.O. references as the visor "yoke".]

Other small changes that were incorporated into all the P-helmets at various times in the early to mid 50s included replacement of the original riveted chin-strap with a slightly modified one, addition of a chamois-covered, wool-cushioned pad to the helmet's chin-strap, replacement of the leather oxygen mask attachment tabs with slightly longer ones that made the snaps more accessible, and introduction of a slightly newer head-harness sling.

Overall, however, the P-1A through P-3 helmets were virtually identical for the most part, and only the new rigid external visor distinguished the P-1 series from the P-3 series helmet, for all practical purposes. All the early P-series helmets including the P-1 through the P-3 helmets used the HS-33, HS-38, and HS-38A communications headset assemblies (AN-AIC-1), with characteristic chamois-covered, kapok-filled earphone cushions. The next major upgrade would come about with the introduction of the Type P-4 Flying Helmet specification in late 1955. [Of interest is the fact that chin straps found on early versions of the P-1A helmet—especially original P-1 helmets upgraded to P-1A standards--included olive drab cotton duck variants, as well as the white cotton duck straps that are more common.]