David Clark Jet-X
Quality without the premium price tag
I wore the Jet-X on a recent series of trips totaling 10 flight hours in Cessna Citation CJ1 and CJ2 aircraft and found it exceptionally light and comfortable with good noise canceling. But as the name implies, this on-ear headset isn’t meant for the noisier environments in piston or even turboprop airplanes.
The Jet-X also intentionally abandons the ongoing headset arms race that has added evermore features such as carbon monoxide detectors and pulse oximeters. It’s a headset that knows it’s a headset and doesn’t try to be anything else. It’s about half the weight of a typical over-ear headset, and the Jet-X has lighter clamping pressure than any headset I’ve ever worn.
There’s no Bluetooth, and no individual volume controls. Just a two-prong mic and earphone jack and a tiny noise-canceling module powered by a single AA battery. The battery lasts 25 to 30 flight hours under normal conditions. A USB-C plug can be used to rejuvenate a rechargeable battery if the pilot installs one.
David Clark is considering a LEMO plug that uses ship’s power for noise cancellation but hasn’t committed to it. The Jet-X is manufactured near company headquarters in Massachusetts and comes with a three-year warranty.
The Jet-X is a viable option for pilots who avoid in-ear headsets. It’s about half the weight of a typical over-ear headset, and the Jet-X has lighter clamping pressure than any headset I’ve ever worn.
It was easy to communicate with others in the airplane while wearing the Jet-X whether they were wearing headsets or not. That was particularly useful before and during engine starts since crew members didn’t have to coordinate their donning of headsets to hear each other.
In flight, slightly elevated ambient noise levels caused me to turn up the radio and intercom volume to about 70 percent from 65 percent with a noise-canceling over-ear headset. But there was still plenty of margin left for adjustments.
Wearing glasses with the Jet-X doesn’t reduce headset performance. Unlike over-ear noise canceling models that require a pressure seal around the wearer’s ears, the Jet-X has no such requirement, so the headset and glasses don’t compete for the same ear-top real estate.
An unanticipated Jet-X benefit comes during approach and landing when subtle changes in wind noise are audible. During a gusty approach, aural cues of rising or falling airspeed are noticeable even before they register on the airspeed or vertical speed indicators.
In sum, the Jet-X is an extraordinarily light, comfortable, minimalist headset ideal for relatively quiet jets on long flights. It won’t connect to an iPhone for music or podcasts, and it won’t remind you to relax, count your steps, or reveal your horoscope. But jet pilots will appreciate its clarity and simplicity—and they’re likely to forget sometimes that they’re wearing a headset at all. 
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