Dark Squiggle
Troubadour
I see how my assumptions about the purpose of helmet were wrong, but I don't see how I was derailing the thread. I was simply trying to say that combatants with superpowers such as elves, fighter pilots, dragons, etc. may be subject to speeds and forces where a helmet would have to be unjustifiably heavy to be effective. I get your point that the helmet protects you from shrapnel and from being knocked around, not just from blows.Dark, it strikes me that your view of the function of a helmet is a tad limited.
It does not become "pointless" just because it cannot protect you from a direct hit from a 20mm cannon round (which I suspect is rarer than a WWI bullet to the head). It has many other protective uses for the modern fight pilot (beyond its use as a visor, com device, stabilization for the oxygen mask, and wind buffer when ejecting).
The modern fighter is subject to violent maneveuring and the head of the pilot can easily strike the inside of the canopy during maneuvering. In the case of detonation in or near the plane it helps prevent brain injury. It can prevent direct penetration injuries from shrapnel and debris. While the modern fighter pilot's helmet has a multitude of uses. those uses include protection from and prevention of head injury.
Helicopter pilots also wear helmets for (amongst other reasons) protection against head injury. There are significant studies available in this area. You should read them.
The design criteria for all western air force helmets require significant ability to withstand and diffuse applications of force, including the $400,000 a pop helmet designed for the F-35 system.
So while you may suggest that the protection aspect of a fighter pilot's helmet is irrelevant to the modern context (which I don't suspect for a moment is what the OP was talking about), all of the current western air forces disagree with you.
however, I think I may have some sort of point, because, looking at pictures, WWII pilots didn't wear helmets either. They may be helpful and even lifesaving, but they clearly aern't an overwhelming necessity, or in the 25 years of air combat experience the world had, someone would have thought of giving the most valuable 'soldiers' the protection all other combatants would have had.