Do passengers in small planes all wear headphones too, or just the pilot?

Question

Do passengers in small planes all wear headphones too, or just the pilot?

Answer 1

my friend has a single engine Beachcraft, when we fly up to Nantucket we wear headsets with mics

Answer 2

i think only the pilot would.

Answer 3

It is not mandatory. However, it is very insisted that they do. For one, it can get very noisy in small planes and you will want them. Also, passengers are an extra set of eyes, therefore you can keep out eye out for other planes. Hence you will need a way to tell the pilot. If you are a passenger, you should get briefed (normally) about looking out for traffic procedures.

Answer 4

Passengers would not need it because pilots use the headphones to contact other people like on the airport or another pilot.

Answer 5

It is not required. But for small planes, especially light single-engine planes, you want the passengers to have one because otherwise they can't hear you, can't talk to each other, and may suffer hearing damage.

Answer 6

They always do in mine. They could barely hear me and I sure couldn't hear them without them.

Answer 7

Its usually preferred. for the following reasons:

1. Noise in a small plane can damage your ears over a long flight. Aircraft headsets are designed to protect the ear from that.  Even if the airplane isnt equipped to plug in the passenger headsets, passengers are sometimes asked to put them on to protect their ears.

2. Basic communication. If they are sight seeing, for example you will want to talk to the person siting beside you without shouting.

3. Emergency Communications - In dangerous situations, such as air traffic, unusual objects that pose a collision risk, or in the case of certain kinds of rare mechanical failures, communication from passengers can save lives.

Its important to note that some aircraft have proper headset management systems that isolate passenger headsets from tower communications. Everyone with a headset can hear each other, but only the pilot headsets can talk to the tower or talk to other aircraft.

Answer 8

Up until the last 10-12 years, it was very rare to see everybody wearing a headset in a light airplane.  In fact almost nobody did.  You had a microphone and there was a loudspeaker, and everybody wore foam rubber earplugs.  Most of us can still hear.

But the headsets and intercoms are nice to have, and probably contribute to passenger comfort.  So the companies that make the headsets have executed a successful long-term marketing campaign.

They are not essential, but they are okay.