Eardrums in WWII

[moot]

Civil flying nowadays, in sleepy planes that almost never go anywhere near WWII warbird performance, is enough to hurt your eardrums.  
How did WWII pilots who dove as we know they did cope with this?  Was it ever a medical issue, or just a matter of getting used to it?

[scottydawg]

Huh? Speak up.

[FTJR]

always curious about that as well, particularly the 163 pilots.

[Blooz]

My guess is Beeman's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRSbYXutreE

[Keiler]

Cannot watch the film (wont load).

It depends if the plane has a pressurized cockpit. If it is, and can maintain the normal airpressure like you have on the ground, you are not subject to this effect. Airliners have a pressurized cockpit and passenger cabin, but to save weight (smaller compressors), they pressurize the cabins at about 85% IIRC, of the air pressure on the ground at travel altitude. Thats why you have to compensate. If you dont have a pressurized cockpit, I guess you can only decend as fast as you are able to bear it, and compensate via yawning (or, in combat, not caring about. I would rather risk serious ear-pain than see myself leaking red out of various holes while being BBQed and suffocated at the same time )

Regards,
Matt

[Krusty]

I seem to recall somebody whose grandpa was a B-25 pilot here on the forums, and he made a comment about how grandpa lost hearing along a certain range because of the engines.


Part of the price you pay, I guess.

[VonMessa]

Kinda like a harp player (cherub style, not harmonica).  Most lose a fair mount of hearing on their playing side due to the enormous amount of overtones.  Risks of the profession.  My grandfather was a gunner on the tanker USS Monongahela (AO-42) and has lost most of his hearing in his left ear (the one he had to keep un-plugged to hear fire direction orders).

[AquaShrimp]

You can equalize the pressure on your eardrums.  There are methods for both compressing and decompressing your eardrums.

[AirFlyer]

Originally posted by AquaShrimp
You can equalize the pressure on your eardrums.  There are methods for both compressing and decompressing your eardrums.

I thought your body did that on its own. Drive up a steep hill once and when you feel your ears "pop" you know they equalized with the surrounding air pressure. I suppose it would be a different if your diving a few thousand feet a minute though...

I have heard of pilots having loss of hearing due to the constant sound of the engine which ends up pushing down the hairs in your ear that you use to hear. It's like listening to loud music all the time, you'll ruin your hearing doing it.

[wooly15]

I use to do a lot of snorkeling in deep water and when you descend and acend rapidly you have to constantly equalize the pressure in your ears.  I would imagine it's pretty much the same ascending and descending in the air.

[Solar10]

This game is so realistic that I lose my high frequency hearing in the summer months.  

This loss is brought on by dolphin like screeches that emanate from vox during that time.

[VonMessa]

Hearing loss cannot be stopped by chewing gum, yawning, or pinching your nose shut wile blowing.

earing loss is caused by physical damage to the eardrum, repeated and/or long exposure to high decibel sounds.

Usually, damage starts in the higher range of frequencies as the lower range is more "felt", than actually heard.

[Angus]

WW2 pilots hurt their eardrums frequently.

[Obie303]

Originally posted by wooly15
I use to do a lot of snorkeling in deep water and when you descend and acend rapidly you have to constantly equalize the pressure in your ears.  I would imagine it's pretty much the same ascending and descending in the air.

Wooly and VonMessa are on the right track.  While I wasn't a physics major, I was an experienced scuba instructor for several years.  The principle is the same underwater as going up.  It's called atmospheric pressure.

Not to get into too much detail of the physics, partially because I don't understand it myself, for every 33 feet (up or down) that is one "atmosphere".  This refers to Boyle's Law.  

Basically, as you ascend (or decend), in a non-pressurized environment, there are atmoshperic pressures put on the human body.  (Below sea level is slightly different, but the priciple is the same)  I forgot the formula on how much pressure.

As a scuba diver, we used to perform excercises to strenghten our eardrums.  Hold your nose and blow out.  Gently to start and you will hear your ears pop.  That is the body equilizing the pressure to the outside environment.  The reason why we have to do this is because of liquid in our inner ear. Helmeted divers, chew gum or moved the jaw muscles to equilize pressure.

The damage to the eardrum, I used to get ear infections from time to time.  Home remedy to fix, vinegar and some Q-Tips.  But since starting Aces High, the wife ack is the only damage to my ears lately.  (Sorry, no cure for that one!)

Thats the best I can come close to an explanation.  Hopefully sombody else can add to this.

Obie

[moot]

Well, it's easy to deduce WWII pilots were subjected to harmful atmospheric changes and I know all about the Eustachian tubes..  I meant to ask if anyone knew how dogfighters most especialy dealt with what must have been pretty painful not once but multiple times per flight.. day in, day out.

It's a bit of a loaded question, but e.g. in the case of the 163 pilots, maybe someone has heard of anything they did to mitigate the effects.