Whoever handles one of these helmets in their hands can hardly believe that it was meant to be used for underwater exploration because a motorcycle helmet is heavier built than the ‘Piel EP’... But a second look reveals that Piel, originally Denayrouze, turned back to its roots with this helmet. Their very first helmet diving apparatus also was a helmet with a demand valve: the pig snout mask or 3 bolt diving helmet with the regulator back pack. This little plastic helmet was designed by Yves Le Masson according to exactly the same idea, only has the size of the heavy brass and copper helmet been reduced to a light plastic shell with a rubber hood and neck seal inside of it. The heavy iron regulator backpack has been reduced to the size of a wrist watch. The original name of the Denayrouze back pack was ‘REGULATEUR’, the wrist watch size demand valve on this new helmet is signed with ‘MICRO REGULATEUR’.
A sticker on top of the helmet says: PIEL-EFA. Piel is the name of the Piel family, EFA stands for ‘Etudes et Fabrications Aeronautiques’, a company that cooperated with Piel in this project. There are officially 3 different versions of these helmets: the EP100, EP200 and EP300. The exact differences I have not ( yet ) found out though but I will give it a try in this chapter. The helmets are not signed or marked EP100 / EP200 or EP300. The only marking I found is on the MICRO REGULATEUR. As you can see at the close up picture of the regulator on the white helmets ( at the photographs further below ) it is marked ‘Type A100’ In a different document marked ‘Casque EP300’ the regulator is called ‘Régulateur respiratoire M300’ so maybe these helmets were named after the regulators(?) The helmets however have more differences in design the the 3 model names that exist ...