![]() I wear Flying Eyes sunglasses when flying and the Delta Zulu’s ear seals managed them without fuss-the ear seals and headband pads are just soft enough to be comfortable and firm enough to keep the headset under control. I didn’t have many very long flights with my evaluation unit, but the Zulu 3 has proven to be a really comfortable headset. As a result, the headset makes the airplane seem quieter, the ride more serene. ![]() Simply put, the DZ’s ANR is flat-out more effective, removing more of the low-frequency rumble presented to the pilot. After several flights where I was able to switch directly from the DZ to my Zulu 3, the differences in ANR quality were very noticeable. With all the new features, I wasn’t expecting the Delta Zulu to be a better ANR headset as well. Volume, power and function controls are on the top face (above). The new battery/control module includes separate cassettes for AA batteries and a lithium-ion pack (left). The goal is to tailor the headset’s response curve to your own hearing for better intelligibility-and the results are impressive. From there, it creates an equalizer curve. Recognizing that older pilots are likely to have high-frequency deficiencies, Lightspeed created a feature that allows you to listen to canned tones and tell the headset (again, through the app) the minimum levels you can discern. Speaking of audio, the Delta Zulu includes an equalizer function it calls HearingEQity. With adapter cables you can charge the device or connect through USB-C, 3.5mm plugs or a Lightning connector for external audio-though the Bluetooth works so well that’s probably what you’ll use most of the time. Recharge of the battery is via a new kind of USB connection called UAC. My brief evaluation period with the Delta Zulu prevented me from fully running a battery pack, of either type, to exhaustion but the Zulu 3s I’ve been using for three years have very good battery life from quality AAs. The Delta Zulu includes a slide-in battery case that can use AAs as well as a separate cassette with a lithium-ion battery. ![]() Power OptionsĪs in the Delta 3 headset, which is still available, Lightspeed gives you the option of ship’s power via a LEMO plug or battery power through two AA cells in an inline control module. The Delta Zulu allows for a custom response curve to help “experienced” pilots with their partial hearing loss. By the time the airplane is doing 60 knots, CO levels drop to zero.) As with the Sentry’s sensor, the one in the Delta Zulu is good for 10 years Lightspeed says that it can be refurbished at the factory for a nominal cost. (My airplane has a known case of very slight CO intrusion only during the winter when the cabin is closed up it only happens during taxi and the very start of the takeoff roll. The Sentry is above and behind the pilot’s head, a bit closer to a suspected point of CO ingress, and so it alerted slightly sooner. In flight, the DZ’s CO alerting closely followed warnings from a Sentry mounted in the airplane. The app keeps levels from recent flights in memory (right). Not only can you see the instant level, you can set the “caution” and “critical” thresholds. While the carbon monoxide detector alerts audibly in the headset, you can monitor live CO levels on the app. You can have it provide a voice alert with or without a warning tone. Within the app, you can set the caution threshold from 10 to 50 ppm (parts per million) and the critical threshold from 51 to 100 ppm. You can turn on the DZ and it’ll do everything you need right out of the box or you can use the free smartphone app (Apple iOS only) to set alarm thresholds and track, in real time, CO levels in the cabin. (And, no, those passive panel dots don’t really constitute state-of-the-art protection.) Lightspeed’s Delta Zulu includes a small CO detector in the ear cup designed to issue an audible warning of abnormal levels. If you’ve flown with a CO detector you probably don’t want to fly very often without one-especially if you’ve used one to detect a cabin leak or exhaust-system malady. But it also brings some truly new features to the category-features that caused Lightspeed to give the Delta Zulu the moniker of “safety wearable.” Cough, CoughĪ key feature of that safety suite is the DZ’s built-in carbon monoxide detector. Late in 2022, the company introduced the Delta Zulu headset, which in the bigger picture offers a refinement and several improvements on its familiar over-the-ear ANR headsets. It was starting to look like all the big players were standing pat, playing the same hand over and over. Lightspeed’s Zulu 3 dropped in 2017, as did David Clark’s DC One-X. Bose introduced the A20 headset as a replacement for its Aviation X unit way back in 2010. If you thought the high-end ANR headset market had become a bit stagnant, you wouldn’t be alone.
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