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RAF Pilots Blinded At 1000 Mph By Helmet Technical Glitch
codeusirae writes "RAF pilots were left 'blinded' by a barrage of images while flying at speeds of over 1,000 mph when a number of technical glitches hit their high-tech helmets. The visors were supposed to provide the fighter pilots with complete vision and awareness, but problems with the display produced a blurring known as 'green-glow,' meaning they were unable to see clearly.The green glow occurred when a mass of information was displayed on the helmet-mounted display systems, including radar pictures and images from cameras mounted around the aircraft."
Glitches happen. I'd assume there's an easy to reach switch that would make the visor of the helmet transparent.
They've gone into plaid
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Relying exclusively on electronic technology introduce a single point of point of failure. Fly by wires, car ecu etc.
Not being able to fall back to some kind of manual mechanical control introduces all kinds of vulnerabilities. Whether it is a glitch in the software, solar flares, aliens or something else ;-)
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/10/29/208205/toyotas-killer-firmware
http://www.ecutesting.com/toyota.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8026971/Aliens-have-deactivated-British-and-US-nuclear-missiles-say-US-military-pilots.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_control_unit
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
This isn't the first problem with the helmet. They aren't scrapping the helmet idea, just the one from BAE Systems. They are going with a helmet from a team of Rockwell Collins and Elbit.
So after reading the article, it was quite hard to tell whether the problem was information overload or a buggy display system. The relevant quote is:
âoeBut for now, thereâ(TM)s only so much data you can put in front of the pilotâ(TM)s eyes before it all merges, especially at night. He or she has got to take in information about their speed, altitude, dive and climb angles, and manage their fuel levels and weapons systems. Add images of the surrounding airspace and it all becomes too much. Essentially, the pilots were being blinded.â
The reporter seems to take the phrase "green glow" literally, rather than figuratively. The blinding referred to in the quote is information overload. The 1,000 mph figure seems merely illustrative, rather than a point at which the helmets suddenly malfunctioned. Information overload is a serious problem for pilots and must be considered in aircraft design, but this appears to be a case of poor design rather than the display failing in mid flight. Perhaps someone out there has better information.
Yeah, but it hurts your neck to strap the amber CRT to your head.
Learn to love Alaska
TFA didn't explain the problem well enough. It's not some sort of malfunction that goes away when you punch reset. It's a design issue that happens any (and every) time it tries to display too much information at once. It's the light from the display that creates the problem, just like a TV lighting a darkened room.
The workaround is to display less information. Probably that would cause a political issue as someone's favorite kitchen sink gets relegated to the panel display.The open question: is it still useful once they remove enough displayed information to let the pilot see.
"a Jedi's strength flows from the Force." while training Luke (a statement he would repeat in Return of the Jedi); Yoda also explains that "you must feel the Force around you." During their battle in Cloud City, Darth Vader tells Luke "The Force is with you, young Skywalker, but you are not a Jedi yet." Finally, Luke says "May the Force be with you" at the end of the movie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_(Star_Wars)
That's all well and good in a galaxy far, far away where the laws of physics are significantly different than this on. Where laser guns (or what ever they are) travel slower than a rifle round in this one. I suppose that explains whey they can travel at light speed though. RAF/all pilots in this galaxy are not Jedi, nor do they have any midichlorians to "feel" the world around them.
I have flown with the current generation Joint Helmet Mounted Cuing System (JHMCS) not the F-35 system, but here is what I can tell you.
1- JHMCS has a one button HOTAS blanking. I am sure F-35 has the something similar. Which means if the symbology gets to be too much you can blank it with a single button push and you are back to a regular old airplane. With JHMCS you will be in a fighter with a HUD for backup, like F-15 or FA-18, while in F-35 you will have to rely on your head-down display, but the airplane keeps flying just fine at 150Kts, 500Kts, 1000kts. It really doesn't matter.
2- The article doesn't really address the fundamental problem. F-35 was designed for the helmet to be the primary flight reference (main instrument), and has no HUD. Like I said, I fly with JHMCS, and it is an awesome tool. The advantage of being able to point your weapon system wherever you look, and likewise have your weapon system point your eyes on target can not be overstated. That being said, it is not good enough to fly instruments. Pointing errors, alignment problems, finicky connectors, etc. are more than just trivial technical problems to be solved. Small shifts or changes in sitting height make minor (0.5 to 1 degree) pointing errors. I routinely adjust alignment at least 2 times a flight.
The decision to have no HUD was (as I understand) based on weight, and it was a bad one. We were putting HUDs+gyros in airplanes for a couple generations before we trusted the HUD alone to be the Primary Flight Reference. Should have done the same thing with helmets.
In large plane civil aviation, even that has redundancy. There are two sets of control hardware, on each side of the cockpit. There are two pilots, who are even required to pick different items from the in flight menu in case of food poisoning.
I believe the food poisoning prevention rule is referred to as the "Leslie Nielsen Protocol"...
"Believes" don't require citations. He's not quoting anyone else; he's stating his opinion. If someone says that their microwave oven killed their dog, who was in the garden, and you say that you don't believe that the microwave was the cause, you would be unable to produce a citation (as it was you making the claim), nor would the onus be on you to do so.
Dogfight? What century do you think this is? I'm not really an expert, but my understanding of modern air battles is that they launch missiles at each other from extremely long distances.
That's what they thought would happen around the time of the Vietnam war. They even went so far as to remove the guns from the fighter aircraft. Turned out they were full of shit. Missiles did not eliminate the need for air combat maneuvering (aka a dogfight) and actually put their pilots at a disadvantage at times. These lessons were a big part of the reason why pilot schools like TOPGUN were created. Even the most modern fighters like the F22 carry onboard 20mm cannons to this day.