The near-term solution is AFRL’s Attenuating Custom Communications Earpiece System (ACCES®), a custommolded, deep-insert earpiece that is easy to install and provides better protection than traditional headsets and foam plugs offer. Having completed a unique cycle of technology transfer and transition, this state-of-the-art hearing protection technology is now being marketed and sold directly to commercial and military customers alike. The General Services Agency contracted with Westone Laboratories, Inc., a commercial designer and manufacturer of custom ear molds, and AFRL in the development and production of ACCES for the federal supply schedule. Westone can integrate specialized electronics and a voice communications cable into these earpieces to provide clear communications in even the highnoise environments endured by pilots and maintainers (see Figures 1 and 2).

The midterm solution is to integrate the ACCES custom plugs with active noise reduction technology. Researchers have successfully demonstrated prototypes, and Westone has begun production of units to be delivered for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which was the first program to require active noise reduction/hearing protection technology.

The long-term solution to the hearing loss problem is for researchers to gain a better understanding of how bone and tissue conduct sound energy to the cochlea, the spiral tube of the inner ear that contains nerve endings critical to hearing. By acquiring this knowledge, researchers hope to develop applicable strategies for reducing the amount of sound energy that reaches the head via air circulation.

Meanwhile, AFRL research audiologists would like pilots and ground crew to take advantage of the available ACCES technology. According to a “safe to fly” memorandum issued by the F-22 System Program Office, “Use of ACCES has proven to be a vast improvement over current earplugs in the area of noise attenuation and speech intelligibility and has generated great interest in our pilot community.” Lieutenant General John Bradley, chief of the Air Force Reserve, personally tested the earplugs during several F-16 sorties and called the technology “phenomenal,” endorsing ACCES as the preferred solution for hearing protection for the Reserve. (The author wishes to acknowledge technical contributions to this article by Mr. John Hall, an audiologist with the AFRL Human Effectiveness Directorate’s Battlespace Acoustics Branch.)

Mr. John Schutte (Ball Aerospace), of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Human Effectiveness Directorate, wrote this article. For more information, contact TECH CONNECT at (800) 203-6451 or place a request at http://www.afrl.af.mil/techconn_index.asp. Reference document HE-H-05-03.