F-35 Pilots Will Begin Flying Improved 'Gen 3' Helmet

[unhappycamper]

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/2014-01-21/f-35-pilots-will-begin-flying-improved-gen-3-helmet



The last brain bucket (VSI-made) they tried on this pig was a $250,000 ditty that did not work for shit. I wonder how much this one costs? Or if it works?

F-35 Pilots Will Begin Flying Improved 'Gen 3' Helmet
by Bill Carey
January 21, 2014, 3:35 PM

F-35 test pilots will begin flying this year with a third-generation helmet mounted display system (HMDS) that incorporates modifications to the earlier-generation display system, which the Pentagon has identified as an F-35 program risk. The fixes the fighter program developed for the “Gen 3” helmet system persuaded the Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) to stop funding an alternate helmet-mounted display.

“I definitely have confidence that we are on the right track; we have the right plan for these fixes in place,” said Marine Lt. Col. Matthew Kelly, government flight test director at the F-35 integrated training center at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.

In 2011, the Department of Defense identified the HMDS as one of several F-35 program risks. It found that the Gen 2 system being developed by the joint venture between Rockwell Collins and Elbit Systems of America—then called Vision Systems International (VSI)—was deficient in the areas of night-vision acuity, display jitter during aircraft buffeting and image latency from the fighter’s electro-optical distributed aperture system (DAS). In September 2011, F-35 prime contractor Lockheed Martin awarded BAE Systems a contract to develop an alternate HMDS with detachable night-vision goggles (NVGs) in the event VSI failed to resolve issues with the incumbent helmet-mounted display.

Last October, after testing display-system fixes over the course of two years, the JPO gained enough confidence in the new Gen 3 HMDS to stop BAE’s parallel display effort. In an interview with AIN, Kelly, an F-35 test pilot, described some of the testing that took place during the intervening period between the start and termination of the alternate HMDS development.

[malthaussen]

1. How long ago was the F-18 made? 35 years?

You'd think in that time, we could design something that worked.

If it wasn't for all the wasted money, the F-35 saga would be hilarious. As it is, it's pathetic.

-- Mal