AsBlondeAsLuke

Ah, happiness is coming home to find a brown box by the door. Today there was a box waiting for me from the Motorcycle Superstore. This is good for my reputation. Makes my neighbors think I am all gangsta' and ride a Harley. Inside are the two helmet liners I ordered last week for my RS bucket. OK, granted I only needed one helmet liner, but they had them on clearance for only $6.99, (down from $54.99), and I wasn't sure what size to get. At that price, why bother guessing on the size? I bought a small and a medium and figured one would fit and I could always give the other away to a fellow trooper. The padding is lovely. It feels so nice and snug on my head. And, as it turns out, I didn't need to worry about size. There is no actual difference between the small and the medium when you hold up the pads side-by-side. The difference is in the webbing which stretches the padding apart and I cut the webbing to make it fit the contours of the helmet. With the webbing released, it was easy to press the pads to the perfect shape. Aaaaahhhh... so comfortable. This is the exact name of the liner in case you are looking to get one. It even comes in 501st blue. Sweet. Ah, here, this is probably more useful, an exact search link to it. And, look, you can now get it for $4.99 in certain sizes. http://www.motorcycle-superstore.com/47872/i/suomy-nomad-helmet-liner?WT.ac=SLIsearch There's free shipping until the end of June. FS-THX-142. Happiness is a comfy helmet.

Another work-in-progress this month is my RS helmet. I have been wanting to get to this project for many months. When my RS armor first arrived in November, I opened the helmet box first. It's so exciting when that armor first arrives! Eh... seriously? Where's the rest of it? I was scared I was going to break the helmet by simply holding it. I tucked it back into the box and put it away. Save that eggshell of a thing for later. Eight months later, the helmet is back out of the box. We're a lot more confident handling ABS, and know we won't break anything by simply touching it. (OK, we did manage to crack something, but that took a lot of brute force.) Having built one helmet already, putting this one together doesn't seem so daunting. Assembly went quickly until we got to... the ears. Gah. The ears. Why do stormtroopers have ears anyway? Not like we can hear anything once we have the helmets on. Anyway, I am posting pics here so I can call upon the collective wisdom to ask about the dreaded gap. Trying to figure out exactly how much "gap" there should be and whether the gap we have now is from the natural "wonkiness" of the helmet. From a straight on front view, there is very little gap. Thinking it looks good. Not much gap from the back view either. But, if you look close-up on the side, you can see a gap here. Here's the other side. Much less gap, but still a wee little gap. Thoughts on the gap here? And... I posted this once before eons ago, but I thought I'd include it again. When Rob sent the ears for my helmet, (they arrived a few months late), he included instructions. I found these instructions to be very helpful so I thought I would share: The trim lines will give you a good start, from there you will need to try them out and trim a little more to get the exact fit you want, I tend to trim them very thin, but others like to leave them thicker so they are sent like that for flexibility, but you will have the general shape to allow you to get in on the helmet. The ears should touch the helmet with no pressure to bend them, so look where they touch and trim that spot, one at a time till you get it. Also, the left ear (when worn) tilts back at the bottom to get the best fit and the right sit quite far forward into the "crush" area on the face, you will see, it wants to sit there naturally. Lastly, trim the bottom of the right ear very close, you can see the mark of the original, I would follow that, if you leave too much plastic there it will throw the whole thing off and you will be wondering whats wrong, its from the bottom. The left does not have the same effect.

So, the next area we worked on was the thighs. We tried removing the cover strip on these once before and it did not go well. It was us versus the Zap-A-Gap and the glue definitely won. I even cleaned out room in the freezer and tried subjecting the pieces to Hoth-like temperatures. This does not work with Zap-A-Gap. My engineer felt that if he put enough force behind it he could get that strip off. But, his force powers are limited and the strip cracked. But, better the strip than the entire thigh piece. It is a scary noise, though, when you hear your armor go: "Kkkkkeeeeerrrrrkkkkk!" Almost like when you break a bone and you have that huge "Uh oh" feeling of dread. It wasn't a huge crack. More like a wee little one. And, I repaired it easily enough with ABS paste. You can see where I fixed it if you look really hard in the picture below. Do you see it? No, it's not easy to find. We cracked the strip right at the bridge. Move your eye an inch up from the ammo pack and you can see a slight line in the cover strip that shouldn't be there. In extreme close-up shots, you can see the line. Having heard that "kreeeeek!" sound once, I wasn't looking forward to attempting this project again. It was the only part of the Centurion updates, I thought we couldn't do. Actually, I was convinced it would be a disaster on the scale of deciding to invest in Alderaan during the age of the Empire. I'd already composed the email to RS in my head requesting new thigh pieces. Yes, I was that sure this was going to go very, very badly. My engineer was confident he was not going to destroy the armor. All I could think of was the cracking noise I'd heard the last time we had attempted this... But, he said he wasn't going to peel off the strip this time, he was going to dremel it off. Eh... husband has done good things with the Dremel. And, sometimes things have not gone well with the Dremel. "Trust me." Sigh. The pieces can be replaced. It will take time. But, we can order new ones... Good bye lovely thigh armor. It was nice trooping with you. The dremeling begins... I had to walk away. I couldn't watch. My engineer calls me back when he has finished working on both thigh pieces. He was right. I was wrong. The armor survived. It needs some finishing work, but the cover strips are off and the armor is in one piece. We study the detail on the archive reference picture to get an idea for what we need to do next. OK, lots of sanding, of course. That's always a required step. A shim would probably be a good idea. But, maybe some ABS paste, too. Almost looks like it has a white gooey look sealing it up. It wouldn't need much. The edges on this piece are already tightly aligned. Here it is after a good sanding. Here's the left side after sanding, (not sure why PhotoBucket insists on sticking this picture sideways), and with the shim being glued in place. Uh oh. Didn't notice until I took this picture that there are two cracks on the left side. Bet those happened at the same time as the other crack which was when we were first trying to peel back those cover strips. Yep. There is no winning against Zap-A-Gap. Time to mix up some ABS paste. It will fix the cracks and add just a wee bit of white to fill in the gooey bits in front of the shim to give it the same look as the reference pictures. Here is the tutorial. How to make your own ABS Paste. Basically, you cut some spare ABS into little pieces of roughly equal size and then add acetone a little bit at a time until you have the right consistency for "the paste." It takes a long time for the plastic pieces to dissolve. I didn't time it today, but I would estimate it took an hour. Remember to never get acetone on your armor. After all, the whole purpose of it is to dissolve plastic. So, you do not want to get this on your skin either. And, you cannot mix it up in a plastic container, either. Right. It all makes sense when you put it that way, right? (Wear gloves. Be careful. Respect the armor.) The start of making the ABS paste. A spare metal bucket. Container of acetone from the paint section of the hardware store. Came back a while later and several of the bits still aren't dissolved. I added a little more acetone, stirred some more and waited again, stirring from time to time. It gets a "skin" on top of it sometimes, like a pudding, so I keep stirring it. After an hour, all my pieces aren't dissolved, but I decide to use it as is. There is plenty in there for me to use. The mixture actually starts to thicken up too much as I'm using it and I end up thinning it out a bit with the acetone. I don't need much anyway. Just enough to add some white goo to fill out the tiny space in the thigh pieces. It's getting cold and windy outside and I need to head indoors to make dinner. I'm glad for the wind, though. The ventilation keeps the bad fumes from the acetone away. OK, remember those cracks we had before on the left thigh piece? Here is an extreme close-up. Gah. Wow. That is almost nauseatingly close. R Here is the area once it was covered with the paste and before sanding. I used only a very thin coat of paste. (OK, at first, I had put on a thicker coat and then decided that was too much. It is easy to scrape off when it is still wet. I apply the stuff using one of the popsicle sticks my son uses for crafts. Actually, I think I ended up using about two dozen of his popsicle sticks. Shhhh... don't tell him.) And, some more sanding.... the cracks are gone. The ABS is smoothed out. The cover strip is gone. The only thing is... there is now a bit of yellow smear from the sandpaper which was yellow. Seriously? So, I need to figure out how to get that off of there. So, be warned that some sandpaper will tint your lovely white armor. Stupid sandpaper. Oh. Maybe where that is the name "sand" comes from in sandpaper. Anyway, I'll figure it out. This is my reference picture, (very helpfully provided by Steve on my EIB thread), so I am trying to match this piece in terms of screen accuracy. Hey, it's all yellow, too. Perfect. Bonus points for being totally screen accurate.

So, I received my EIB approval on May 29th. A glorious moment for the Empire. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/27414-tk-95020-requesting-anh-stunt-eib-statusrs-383/ Actually, it was the day I did an undignified "squee" and ran around in happy circles, but "glorious moment for the Empire" sounds better. I'm very grateful to everyone that took the time to provide comments and suggestions on how I can further improve my armor. I am especially grateful to Steve who obviously put so much time and thought into reviewing my approval and coming up with the suggestions on what I can do before Centurion. My whole goal, from the start, has been to create the best armor possible. So it means a great deal to me to gets such help from my fellow troopers as I go through this process. It was also wonderful getting congratulations from everyone after I received my approval. We've spent the past two weeks working on the list from Steve, looking over the suggestions from everyone else, as well as making some improvements that I wanted to do. I decided that June would be a "no trooping month." Because I was working on getting my armor ready for Centurion, it was easier to pull the armor apart and not have to worry about having it back together again for the weekends. Not that I don't miss going out and trooping, but it is about having a higher goal in mind. OK, the first thing we tackled was the first area Steve had mentioned: SHINS: I know how much of your grieves (shins) you needed to remove. I know you were going for the tapered look you showed in your screen grab. RS shins aren't designed, unfortunately, with that taper out of the box. With the amount you cut off the bottom makes that a greater challenge. The end result looks very wide around your ankles. With the boots on, I would squeeze the shins around your ankle. If there is comfortable, significant overlap, I'd trim those down to "slim up" the look of the shins. I didn't mind trimming the shins. They did feel loose on me. Granted, it did feel odd to be doing more trimming considering how much we have already taken off of the armor. But, we ended up taking even more off. Each time my husband trims down any more off the armor, he says to me: "You can't gain any weight. We keep making this smaller!" I keep teasing him: "Ah, that's what shims are for... I'll get fat in my old age like everyone else." (I've actually been trying to bulk up at the gym so I don't look so small in the armor. I want to take the padding out of the armor. Not sure I'm succeeding. I'm working on it, though.) And, you can see the problem with the shins on these pics from my most recent troop. "Star Wars Day at the Library." From the back, my shins look decent. (Not complimenting my legs, mind you, just talking taper here.) But, from the front, my shins are definitely drooping. Total sag going on. A couple of times I have even reached down to make sure that my shins haven't come unhooked. Yes, I definitely feel a draft walking around. So, I have no problems with trimming those ladies up. We looked at the "Jes Gistang" thread because I liked the shapeliness of her shins, and I think she is about the same size as me. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/15279-jes-gistang-research-thread/page-9 Squeezing those ankles and measuring. Fittings. Wow. This brings back memories. This is how much we ended up trimming off. More ABS for our ever growing scrap pile. (We recently ended up using spare ABS to repair our refrigerator door handle. Well, we have so much of it now.) More fittings. We were happy with the shape so we moved on to gluing. Believe it or not, we couldn't remember which way the cover strip should be facing. I know. Funniest thing. we cut the old one off and then couldn't remember which way to glue it back on the next day. Gah. We're getting old. But, anyway, it's in the CRL. Cover strip faces the inside since shins must close toward the inside. Time to glue. Clamps. Can you ever have enough clamps? And yes, we still use the reference binder all the time. It is very full now. I might need to move on to a bigger binder. I printed out my EIB approval thread so that I would have everyone's comments. Plus, I've been referencing Steve (WideAMG's) RS build again since we are now building my RS bucket. Mmmm... you can never have enough research.

Thank you, Evan, Matt, Tim, and Damon. Yes, I suppose the hard part is over. Although, now we're working on the next step, which is getting to Centurion. Still focused on getting all those details just right, so the process is the same.

Derek, This is very well written. Some great tips in here. I love the idea of always moving around anyway because standing still for so long gets painful. All these movements and interactions are perfect. My favorite quote is this one: >>Dont take off your helmet unless you're in a private area, bathroom, or in back of the backdrop. Being helmetless is as bad as being naked. It takes the "real live stormtrooper" fantasy away. Yes! Great analogy. Thanks again for posting.

Diana Wolf Torres 95020 EIB Letter

Yes, they arrived right in the middle of when I was working on my EIB approval pics. I was very happy to get your package. (I did send you an email last week.) This pic was taken with my old tips: And, here is the detail shot with the new ones. And, when I complete my RS bucket, I'll be switching my beautiful new tips over into that one. (I'm planning on using the other helmet as a display helmet in our Star Wars room.) Thanks again for sending. Nice work on the mic tips.

Ha ha ha. Laughing so hard I practically spit coffee all over my computer keyboard. Thank you for that, Adam. I'll have to get you back for that one next time I see you on a troop. Oh my. OK, now I am laughing so hard that tears are coming out of my eyes. I don't think I'll ever be able to burn the image out of my mind. Geez. Live action photos would be delightful. The current artwork for my stories is done by an actual artist. She is working on clone armor for submission for the GGG so you'll get to meet her soon. I've been harassing her about finishing her armor mercilessly, so that I'll have another trooping buddy. (Although, I keep telling her she should be a TK. My motto is: "Everybody loves a stormtrooper.") You know, all of the clones in my stories are either named by readers of the story or named after people I know. Keep making me laugh so hard and you'll end up with a clone named after you.

A very worthy goal. Good luck with your build. Everyone here on the FISD is wonderfully supportive. Remember to research, research, research and measure twice and cut once. The biggest mistakes we made were when we rushed steps. Then again, my dear husband, while a brilliantly talented man, can not be faulted for being the most patient man. Putting in those extra hours of research will always save days of backtracking and headaches later. When in doubt, ask questions. Truly, there are no dumb questions.

Awesome build thread, Adam! Learned so much from reading it. I love my fans from Echo. Maybe I'm mildly claustrophobic, or perhaps I just don't like stuffy air, but I can't stand being in the helmet without the fans on. I always have both going at once. Ah. Blissful fresh air. OK, I cracked up at your picture of the stormtrooper piggy back from Disneyland. I was at Disney this weekend with my son. And, we found those stormie piggy banks were adorable. They were all over the store. Like a bunch of shrunken head stromtroopers.

Thank you, everyone. So excited to make it to EIB!

OK, excellent. Very clear. Thank you. We'll get to work.

Steve- Thank you! You have put so much time into both reviewing this EIB application and also been a constant supporter of my build thread. Not sure I would have ever been able to complete this project without the constant support of dedicated FISD members such as yourself. I'm very excited to have met the requirements for EIB and to have the opportunity to further improve my armor as I work toward Centurion. I have already reviewed your comprehensive, well-thought out list with my engineer and we have created a plan of attack. "I guess this gives us a project for the summer," my engineer said. But, I could see the gears were already turning and he had a plan for fixing all the details. Germain is right, though. The painting is my job. I am almost finished with my second helmet, my RS helmet, so I'm hoping to have that one done in time for Centurion. I will ensure the frown lines are perfect, as per your helpful suggestions above, as well as the outlines. We've been working on shortening the trim below the ammo pack. Not an easy task with my engineer's love of Zap-A-Gap. Here is how it looked originally: Here is how it looks now, shortened and with a rounded end. In a couple of places in the screen reference library, I saw thigh pieces with a longer trim line, like the piece on the right in this picture: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/gallery/image/2053-a-new-hope-knee-pack-placement-lfl-caleb-04/ We did try to make it shorter, but were battling a grievous amount of Zap-A-Gap which threatened to crack the whole piece. (We did get a small crack already, so but that's OK, because I discovered that I'm very good at making ABS paste. It's wonderful stuff.) We are willing to willing to try it again, of course, if need be. We are nothing, if not persistent. The engineer is thinking with enough time he could grind it back with the Dremel? Other thoughts? (Hah. My thought: Don't use Zap-A-Gap.) And, we you say "fronts," I'm assuming this means it has to be done on both sides? Will definitely get to work on everything on the list. Thank you again for all of your time, guidance and suggestions. Excited about getting to now take my armor to the next level.

You are absolutely correct. Those bell straps are indeed there, but blend in with the pic. Here's another picture, taken outdoors where you can see the straps. I've been working on bulking up my arms to try to keep those armpieces from sliding so much much. I made bicep hooks, but have yet to use them because I don't want to drag my shoulders down. Maybe I'll try them, though. Might be preferable to sliding arms. And, all jokes aside about my impressive cod, I've only hesitated to trim it for back because I didn't want to trim it and have it end up looking like a "bikini cut." There is so much detail around the cod piece. Didn't want to trim back and end up looking like a femme trooper. Definitely not the type of stormie I've always aspired to be.

Hi Derrek- Thanks for pointing out this detail. I re-took that one shot outdoors in natural sunlight. The RS holster is actually a tawny brown, which means it is reddish, but not that red.

Thanks for all the great feedback. I do love discussing my big cod.

Thank you everyone for the insightful feedback and encouraging words. Greatly appreciated!

Name : Diana Wolf Torres TKID : 95020 Forum name : BlondeAsLuke Garrison : GGG Armour : RS Helmet : Scootch Blaster : SciFire Height : 5’6†Weight 115 lbs. Boots : TK Boots Canvas Belt : RS Hand plates : RS Latex Neck seal : RS Holster : RS FULL BODY SHOTS Front- Arms at sides. Back- Arms at sides. Left- Arm raised. Right- Arm raised. Right Side Detail- Arm raised. Left Side Detail- Arm raised. ARMOR DETAILS Abdomen Details Action Shot (1) Action Shot (2) Cod and Butt Plate Attachment Interior Strapping HELMET DETAILS Front Side Back (left) Back (right) Hovi Tip Detail Lens Color (Backlit) BLASTER DETAILS Blaster- Left Blaster- Right D-Ring/Scope ACCESSORY DETAILS Neck Seal Thermal Detonator- Back Holster Attachment Thank you for your consideration.

Sweet! Nicely done!

Aw, well, Darren, since you asked for more trooping pics, I do have more. I just didn't want to bore anybody. So, I have pictures and stories to share from the latest troop which was May the Fourth. I carpooled up to the troop, since Kyle is always telling me "never troop alone." So, carpooling guarantees I won't be alone. This time, I went with two other 501st members and it made it easier with sharing gas, parking, driving, and figuring out the directions and where to park. Plus, they shared great stories with me of past troops. Finding parking in San Francisco is always a bit of a challenge, but it was easier with three pairs of eyes. And, then we walked a few blocks in the city hauling our cool bins, and well, that amuses me to no end. (I'm so easily amused anyway.) The Super 7 Store is located on Haight-Ashbury, which is an amazing location. OK, granted everything there is a bit small and cramped, but hey, it's the city. It's good for me to get out of the garlic capitol once in a while. So, the first big challenge of the day was getting to the changing area. The store was small and narrow and it was like a little obstacle course getting through the store and to the back rooms. Fortunately, I had just traded out my big Stanley bin for a smaller and lighter bin that I could carry more easily. I was especially glad of the lighter weight when I encountered Stage 2 of the mighty trooper obstacle course: the big stairs. Yes, the changing area was outside and upstairs. The stairs were steep, too. An easier-to-manage bin was a blessing with the steep steps. Weather was awesome, warm and sunny. San Francisco can definitely go the other way and it was very pleasant armoring up outside on the back deck behind the store. I had a chance to meet over a dozen other people from the GGG. (There were a number of troops to choose from on May the 4th, but I specifically chose this one because it was such a popular troop and gave me a chance to meet so many fellow GGG members all at once.) My favorite moment was when I was getting dressed and struggling to get snapped up. I turned around and three of my garrison members were all right behind me, ready to help. In no time at all, I was snapped up and ready to go. Just an awesome example of "troopers helping troopers." I was very touched by how willing they were to help me. It meant a lot. Now that I was dressed, I still had to make it down the steep steps. I left my helmet off until I reached the bottom, (because I wasn't going to tempt fate), but otherwise had no problem with the stairs. I was glad I had practiced going up and down stairs at home. (The next thing I am going to work on is figuring out how to sit in my armor without cracking it or embedding shards of plastic in my butt.) I still had audio feedback right at the beginning, so I had to tug my helmet off and turn my Aker down. With the volume down, it is much harder to hear me. (Sigh.) Next troop I am going to try a different microphone. (I already have the mic and have tried it around the house and in the backyard a number of times this week, much to the great distress of the dog who now hates amplified audio.) My new helmet padding helped a lot. Visibility was much better than last week at the SuperHero Saturday event. I still had to do a few minor adjustments to get my helmet to sit properly in front of my eyes sometimes. And, I definitely couldn't see the little kids when they asked me to "give them a high five," but that is just the limited sight view of the helmets. I was griping to a friend: "What idiot designed these helmets anyway?" She said: "Uh, that would be George Lucas." Ha ha. Right. (Actually, I think it was Ralph McQuarrie and the design is more about style than functionality.) Anyway, functionality aside, the more I wear the helmet, the easier it is to figure out how to "see" with it on. Plus, if I dare insult the helmet, somebody here will probably have my head. (Just saying, though, from a design standpoint, a T-visor makes more sense because then you can see down your nose. I would be able to see the little kiddies asking for a high five. Imagine.) Here are some more pics from the day. I am the fifth one in from the left. It is very fun trooping with such a large group. We literally stopped traffic. This is the view from the street of people trying to take pictures and get a glimpse of the 501st. People were telling us they drove in from two hours away just to see us. As they should, because we're worth the trip. There were all these tour buses going by and people were hanging off the sides to take pictures. Even the SFPD stopped to take pictures. It is nice to stop traffic. There was a photo booth in the back of the store, and we all took turns doing "photo booth" duty. As I was headed back to take my turn in the booth, one woman remarked to her husband, "Oh, they sent the puny one." I wanted to give her a look, or do something to let her know we're not deaf because we were helmets. But, I let the comment go and politely took pictures with her. She could be rude, but I couldn't since I was representing the 501st. The photo booth was fun, despite being very hot in the store and crowded. I did my best to be friendly with folks and help them come up with good poses. Eventually, I did so many pictures that my armor started coming off from being handled too much. I'd done so many pictures with folks having their arms around me that my biceps slid and one of my shoulder pieces came unsnapped. So, it was time to call it quits rather than pose with imperfect armor. This week, I am adding even more padding into my arms. Hopefully, it will make me look bigger and ensure those pieces can't slide no matter how hard I get hugged and squeezed during pictures. Kyle realized I was a popular choice for picture taking even outside the store, too, because of my height. Why? I make people look taller in pictures. Kyle nicknamed me "the mini-trooper." I'm totally fine with being known as "the mini-trooper." But, I draw the line at being called puny. We were on NBC and ABC. Yup, that's me. The wee little one to the right of the snow trooper commander. And, here I am second to the left of Commander Wolffe. Aw, cute little princesses. They're adorable with that whole Leia bun hair style going on. Aw, a wee little Jedi. There were less of us out at this point, because a bunch of folks were on break eating lunch. The restaurant next door provided us with free lunch. Nice! Food was good, too. Not sure what it is, but trooping makes you hungry.

There are some pivotal moments in a girl's life. You know, like: - Going to the prom. (OK, the prom never really was my thing. I'm a geek girl at heart.) - Getting married. (I aced getting married. I have a husband who looks like Jango Fett and puts up with me being a stormtrooper.) - And, then there is the decorating of the armor bin.... I seriously can not tell you how ridiculously pleased I was today to add my new personalized TK sticker to my armor bin. I even made my son stop what he was doing to admire it with with me. (He was not impressed, but I made him pretend like he was or threatened to take away his computer privileges for the rest of the day. He declared it a "work of art.") Dragging that bin around town is almost as much fun as trooping itself. OK, admittedly my arms are a bit short so sometimes the bin hits me in the back of the legs. I have even smacked myself in the butt with it. I'm sure there is a fine bin dragging skill that I have yet to master. Perhaps I need to drag it around the block a few times to work up my bin dragging muscles. But, people got out of our way last week when we were dragging our bins down the street in the Haight. Maybe because we made more noise than a pack of pachyderms. But, wow, that is good fun.

Mmm... Interesting. So many choices. How lovely to have all these choices. My sweaty palms thank you.

Oh, that's brilliant. I didn't think of that. The handplates on my Nomex gloves are attached with Velcro, so I can pop those off and then use the Nomex as liners for the rubber gloves. Thanks for an awesome tip!

Assuming you mean a bike helmet, then? I have extra ones of those lying around since I have a twelve year old and we're always buying extra helmets for his friends to use when they come over. At this age, they don't seem to have any survival instincts when they get onto something with wheels. You're probably right about the helmet. I guess all that sliding around gets a bit frustrating but I know I'll figure out how to pad the thing perfectly. Ha ha. OK, I'll admit it. I think about my hair. But, between the balaclava and being in the helmet for a couple of hours, when I come out it looks like someone sat on my head. So I've added a brand new must have item for my trooping bin... a hat.