In 2007, Phaeton Group tried out an experimental ice helmet to go with the rest of the gear worn for polar expeditions.
Arctic expeditions demand serious and careful preparations when it comes to the matter of protective gear. Vera Williams, the Project Coordinator for Phaeton Group's Northwest Passage mission, is an Arctic science logistics specialist for the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, so she is in a particularly good position to appreciate the special issues that attend travel into the frozen north. Vera researched polar gear thoroughly in preparation for the 2007 icebreaker mission, and made sure that our Ice Corps team was superbly equipped with a full panoply of first-rate protective gear. From special long underwear to the world's finest goose-down expedition parkas, Phaeton's field team would be protected from the icy Arctic weather by multiple layers of cutting-edge technology.
On reviewing this equipment, however, the standard set of polar gear seemed to have a weak point in face protection. Photographs of polar explorers with icicles on their mustaches and beards seemed to support the criticism. Our Quartermaster put the matter plainly: "We're spending a thousand dollars each for these super space-suit parkas, and you guys still have to get frozen faces?" A helmet, it was proposed, would offer superior protection from cold and wind, allowing longer exposure or to worse conditions than the standard scarf and hood would do.
"No one uses helmets in the Arctic," everyone told us when the matter was looked into. "Why not?" Well, no one could give an answer for certain. It was assumed that "they must fog up or something." There was total unity of opinion on the matter everywhere we asked. "No one uses them, for whatever reason, so they must not work. It's a stupid idea, forget it."
This was insufficient to deter our redoubtable Quartermaster, and so a helmet was prepared for experimental trials. The design selected featured a venting system with locking baffles to optionally circulate air past the visor to reduce fogging. The design also sports an "opening jaw" system, which offers full-face protection when closed, but allows the option of raising not just the visor but the entire faceplate if desired. This became the prototype Phaeton Ice Helmet. "Try it out and we'll see if it works," was the plan, and off the team went to the Arctic.
Dr. Reynolds himself boldly ventured to try out the ice helmet personally, despite the considerable personal risks of some kind of malfunction or, worse, looking like an idiot.
The results were surprising. The ice helmet worked perfectly. Any wind strong enough to be uncomfortable was sufficient to run the passive venting system and clear the faceplate of fog. Wearing the visor open still offered excellent protection from moderate wind. And when there was no wind at all, the faceplate flipped up easily to eliminate fog and make talking easier.
When the icebreaker's Zodiac boat was zipping back and forth between the ship and the shore, Dr. Reynolds found that the ice helmet allowed him to stare straight into headwind sharp enough to send everyone else cringing into their hoods. Likewise, when the icebreaker was under full steam at night, Reynolds could comfortably look over the prow or the side to watch for the light-bursts of glowing luminescent plankton, when the "slipstream" carved streaming tears out of unprotected faces. "The prototype ice helmet worked great," Reynolds reports. "A scarf fogs up my glasses immediately, so that's out for me. I have to be able to see clearly to shoot photographs, and besides that, in many circumstances it's dangerous to have compromised vision in a hostile environment like the Arctic--whether we're shooting video from the skid of a helicopter or negotiating tricky terrain. I tried a couple of different kinds of scarves, and a formed foam face mask used by skiers--all nice gear, but no good with glasses. In contrast the ice helmet worked brilliantly."
Work on the ice helmet is just getting started for our Quartermaster branch. Now that Arctic trials have proven the basic idea sound, Dr. Reynolds wants the helmet fitted with a communications system. "I want helmets wired to plug into whatever comm system we're using at the moment," Reynolds says. "If it's just Phaeton personnel, it should plug into our Motorolas [walkie-talkies]. Aboard the copter, it should plug into the copter's system. I would have been in much better shape shooting out on the skid if I'd had the ice helmet, but I had to wear the unshielded pilot's helmet because it was safety-critical to be connected to the comm system."
"The ship crew thought I was crazy when I first tried it on," Reynolds admits. "But by the end of the voyage they were asking me what model it was and where you could get them." Some of the Ice Corps team members seem fairly invulnerable to wind and cold, and for them a helmet would be cumbersome and unnecessary. But it's clear that the Phaeton ice helmet will have some useful applications, and the prototype served well in the Northwest Passage. When a Mark I version is completed with electronics, we'll update this entry.
