Jessika Pava's flight helmet is pictured here.
Starfighter helmets, which are also called flight helmets, were a component of the flight suit that pilots wore. Throughout the various factions that deployed pilots, numerous helmet styles existed, but they all shared common design characteristics, notably a visor to shield the eyes.
Flight helmets could also find use when Jedi training was involved, such as the helmet Luke used, which had blast shields, and was actually a KSE-H44 A-wing pilot helmet while he trained his sister on Ajan Kloss.
Prior to the Clone Wars, the Galactic Republic lacked a unified military. Individual planets maintained their own forces, and some, like Naboo, possessed starfighter corps. Royal Naboo Security Forces pilots sported brown, leather-esque helmets equipped with visors. In the Clone Wars' initial stages, clone pilots donned white helmets resembling Phase I clone trooper helmets, but with air tubes. By the time ARC trooper Fives escaped from Tipoca City, a newer helmet design for clone pilots had been implemented; this helmet left a portion of their face visible. This helmet was used by starfighter pilots like Clone Commander Davijaan "Odd Ball" during the Battle of Coruscant and Jag during Order 66.
Imperial pilots were forbidden from removing their helmets while flying; this was something taught to recruits at the Imperial Academy. Pilots serving the Rebel Alliance frequently displayed the starbird symbol on their helmets, frequently the K-22995 light flight helmet. Rebel flight helmets came in a range of designs. X-wing and Y-wing pilots commonly wore a rounded helmet with a chinstrap during the early rebellion and Galactic Civil War. Conversely, A-wing and B-wing pilots typically wore a different design featuring cheek pieces and lacking a chinstrap.
By the Cold War era, thirty years later, the Resistance's X-wing pilots used a helmet design that modernized the Galactic Civil War version. In every situation, helmets were modified to accommodate species that could not fit into human-sized helmets. Rylothian pilot Yendor had a specially made helmet with openings for his lekku, and Hera Syndulla, a fellow Twi'lek, sported a custom visor and a pilot's cap.
Imperial TIE pilots wore black helmets whose design was similar to those worn by stormtroopers. They featured breathing tubes that connected to a control box on the chestplate of an atmospheric suit, because TIE fighters generally lacked fully pressurized cockpits. Some helmets had gray stripes. Three decades later, the First Order's starfighter corps TIE pilots, in keeping with their emulation of Imperial aesthetics, wore similar-looking black flight helmets, with some featuring red stripes.
Aunt Z displayed a variety of pilot helmets spanning several decades on a shelf in her tavern, including those of Mandalorian, clone, Imperial, and rebel pilots.