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RAF Pilots Blinded At 1000 Mph By Helmet Technical Glitch

Posted by timothy on from the heads-up dept.

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."

13 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Where's the manual override? by nikhilhs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Glitches happen. I'd assume there's an easy to reach switch that would make the visor of the helmet transparent.

    1. Re: Where's the manual override? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Luke, you switched off your targeting computer! What's wrong?

  2. Sir by Ogive17 · · Score: 4, Funny

    They've gone into plaid

    --
    "Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
  3. Relying exclusively on electronic technology by ls671 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
    1. Re:Relying exclusively on electronic technology by dunkelfalke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The pilot is already a single point of failure.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    2. Re:Relying exclusively on electronic technology by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Fly by wire has multiple redundancies. It's not a single point of failure any more than hydraulic control system is.

    3. Re:Relying exclusively on electronic technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's how I approach things: If there's already 1 single point of failure, why not introduce a bunch of others?

    4. Re:Relying exclusively on electronic technology by jklovanc · · Score: 5, Informative

      You really need to learn more about modern aircraft. When an aircraft is designed there is a trade off between stability and maneuverability. The more stable something is the less maneuverable it is. Today's aircraft are very unstable and very manuverable. Electronocs allow that becouse they can make the thousands of control inputs per second to keep the aircraft stable. Most modern fighters would fly apart of if the electronics failed even if there were mechanical backups.

      By the way, the backup for the visor failing is lift the visor and use the cockpit readouts.

    5. Re:Relying exclusively on electronic technology by Sperbels · · Score: 4, Informative

      In the middle of a dog fight is not where you want to have to lift your visor that gave you all those nifty capabilities.

      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.

  4. The article looks fishy by jcaplan · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  5. Re:Wrong color by AK+Marc · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, but it hurts your neck to strap the amber CRT to your head.

    --
    Learn to love Alaska
  6. Re:1,000 mph, so what by sjames · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  7. Useless and sensationalistic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.