ALSE

Aircrew Life Support Equipment - ALSE

You might have come across the term "Aircrew Life Support Equipment" or short ALSE. When you ask yourself what these four letters stand for the answer is easy and hard at the same time. The short form is: ALSE is everything that brings a pilot home savely to his family from 100 000 ft to the ground. To be more precise and to specify "everything", here a small insight what is meant with that:
ALSE reaches from the underwear of a pilot which might be fireproof (and we are not talking about mexican food here!) to his glasses and his helmet and eventually his ejection seat. Every single peace has a particular purpose and is there for a reason. The best example for this is a pilots vest. It contains obvious things like a knife and a radio and things that seem less obvious like cash money. This helps the ejected pilot to solve problems in other ways than hiding or fighting if he goes down over a less friendly territory. Another item that might just seem cool are sunglasses. They are more than a symbol of badassness, they protect your eyes against the sunlight and some glasses are also ballistic glasses which means they protect your eyes against possible shrapnels.
Now let´s shift attention to some more obvious parts. An aviators helmet is the most recognizable feature of a pilot - as you mostly only see his head and parts of his upper body in an aircraft. The helmet is a really fascinating part of the equipment. In it´s history it went from a flexible leather cap over to helmets that came from sports like football to helmets that had just been designed for it´s purpose - flying! This started in the late 40´s and early 50´s with helmets like the H-4 which was used by helicopter and jet pilots then. With the P-4 helmet (also used on rotary and fixed wings), a helmet with similar features to a modern helmet, was designed. It also had a fixed visor that was able to slide down from the top of the helmet and cover the face of the pilot. Since then and especially in the late 50´s to early 70´s a lot development took place. Nowadays it is again a phase of huge leaps in the industry as helmets more and more have integrated displays that shall make the pilots life easier by showing him necessary informations. This is a development in correlation to new aircraft that are increasingly digitalized.
Another item in the case of jet pilots that is literally close to the helmet is the oxygen mask. It provides fresh air to the pilot. Even if the pilot flies in a pressurized cockpit it might be inevitable to wear a mask due to safety reasons. On the one hand a mask protects your face physically during an ejection, on the other hand oxygen is key to be prepared against high altitude sickness which can potentially be deadly when treated wrong or identified to late or not at all.
The technicians that are responsible for the pilots gear take always good care of their business as the pilots life literally lies in their hands. To give you some examples here a few pictures of helmets in historical order:

Pic1: WWI style air observer´s helmet and cold weather protection gear

Pic 2: WWI style air observer´s helmet

Pic 3: WWI german pilot with soft leather cap, goggles and parachute harness

Pic 4: WWII german pilot gear including soft leather cap, goggles, boots and navigational items

Pic 5: Modern jet pilot gear including a MSA helmet and a MBU-20/P oxygen mask

Pic 6: Helicopter gear including a Gentex SPH-4 and a german MARINE vest with life preserver. The SPH-4 was used since the Vietnam conflict.

Pic 7: Modern version Gentex SPH-4B (civilian version SPH-5) with a improved double visor system

Pic 8: Replacement of the SPH series: the Gentex HGU-56/P, a lighter and more impact resistant helmet with a double visor system

Pic 9: Modern "Top Owl" helmet system that displays important information directly in your visor and has side mounted night vision cameras