Who says pilots are the only ones who can have a headset?

They might be speedy, they might be comfortable, they might even spare you the humiliation of a TSA employee showing the world those tiger-stripe boxers in your carry-on, but there's one thing that private planes decidedly are not: quiet. Whether you're in the pilot's seat, trying to hear the control tower over the thrum in the cabin or attempting to get a little reading done, chances are your typical flight is a carnival of audible distractions.

Hence the role for Bose's Aviation Headset X ($995), which actively reduces that pesky engine roar and other background noise by generating an out-of-phase signal inside the snug ear cups -- and boasts way-increased intelligibility of anything coming over radio or intercom. (According to the company, in U.S. Air Force tests, the headsets achieved intelligibility scores of 95 percent, even at a membrane-blasting 115 decibels.) Other ear-opening features: 40 hours of battery life (electronics adjust voltage to preserve the two AAs); an intelligent boom microphone that actively homes in on speech patterns; and a handheld control stick allows you to adjust the volume or shut the headset off entirely with a mere flick of a thumb-wheel.

But even if you're 40 hours short of your pilot's license, the headset adds a bit of cred to your flying experience. Curious cabin dwellers can come up front and plug the 12-ounce wonders into an audio jack. Or they can sink into their plush seat, slip on those padded ear cushions and apply the company's fabled high-fidelity firepower to a laptop showing of Air Force One.

For the audiophile aviator, in other words, it's the Bose of both worlds. 

Movies of all time Top Gun Twenty years before he caught air off Oprah's couch, Tom Cruise took to the sky as Maverick, the fighter-pilot equivalent of that grinning punk who offers the finger after blasting past you on the highway in his Camero. There's nothing like a little stint in the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School, though, to turn even the cockiest cockpitter into a team player -- especially when your fellow trainees (including a pre-chunky Val Kil­mer) seem determined to make you eat their slipstream. The true aviation buff (and anyone not interested in bad '80s hair and worse dialogue) will want to fast-forward to the movie's flight sequences, which show off just what a group of filmmakers can accomplish with full cooperation from the Navy — real planes zoom, real missiles zip and (with an appropriately room-shaking sound system) you really feel the power of an F-14. To vote for Top Gun or to nominate your own Best Flight Movie of All Time, go to PrivateAirDaily.com

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