A Brief History of Russian Flying Helmets and Aviator Oxygen Masks

For over fifty years, factual information on a wealth of details concerning Russian military materiel and systems was successfully obscured behind a tight blanket of state-imposed security. Attributable to polar economic philosophies characterising the clash between America‟s system of capitalistic democracy and the Soviet Union's form of state-sponsored (Communist) socialism (during the culminating expression of that super power contention that was „The Cold War‟ of the 50s, 60s, and 70s), it was not until the crushing financial burden of this competition resulted in the downfall of the Soviet State that valid information concerning many of the Russian developments in military materiel was finally revealed.