Helmet-mounted displays

Gums · by **Gums** » 29 Jan 2012, 00:53

Salute!

Hard as it to believe, we had folks back in 1972 that turned off the 'scales" that showed speed and altitude. Real simple HUD display, with only flight path marker, pitch lines, heading doofer at the top and the AoA bracket if you pulled hard or were slow.

The Viper had a similar de-clutter mode.

The new Viper HUD is extremely busy, and I hope there's a way to get rid of lottsa stuff.

Someone here pointed out the "information overload" concern. This is a topic worthy of discussion on a whole new thread, IMHO.

Problem we had back in the 80's was the tendency for the pilots to try to look at all the stuff that was presented. Before the new, cosmic displays we had to look at individual instruments and such. It was easy to mentally de-clutter. Just not look at the gauge.

I have yet to see what info is displayed in the F-35 HMD, and hope to see it next month. I will be sad if there's a whole bunch of useless crap for the tactical situation at hand.

Gums sends...

P.S. How many folks here other than Outlaw have flown a jet with a great HUD?

spazsinbad · by **spazsinbad** » 29 Jan 2012, 01:09

Gums if you can relate / show what is displaye on the HMDS that would be great. Thanks. AFAIK the HMDS is seemingly a simple display. I have seen some vague text descriptions but don't recall those vague details right now.

Here is an example from: (which is on this thread somewhere AFAIK - nope it is on this following thread) [UKmodINmuddle]: http://www.f-16.net/index.php?name=PNph ... elm#203571

Helm

http://www.f35netherlands.nl/f-35-technische-data/helm/

"...“We’ve taken pieces that are essential for combat operations, such as targeting information, crucial flight measurements, and night vision capability, and merged them into the helmet to give the pilots more complete situational awareness.”

The helmet-mounted display system, or HMDS, displays head-steerable symbology, meaning the pilot’s line of sight dictates the content that appears on the visor. As soon as, or even before, a pilot sees another aircraft in the distance, the system projects a marker on the visor to locate, identify, and track the aircraft. If the designated aircraft is determined to be hostile, the pilot can use the targeting info to cue weapons—without looking down at the cockpit displays and while pulling g’s.

“No matter where pilots look, they have all the flight information right in front of their eyes,” says Dave Perkins, lead engineer of HMDS integration. “The helmet displays airspeed, altitude, rate of climb, and the aiming information for all the weapons. The helmet even displays all the information needed should something go wrong. For example, it provides an alert and directs the pilot’s attention if there’s something nasty coming from the nose of the airplane while the pilot is looking somewhere else.”...
&
"...For the display to correlate with what direction the pilot is looking, a magnetic field in the cockpit senses the direction the helmet is pointing. A transmitter on the seat emits the field while a receiver on the helmet reads the magnetic flux as it moves in that field. “Most HMD systems require pilots to go through an alignment process before each flight,” explains Beesley. “They may have to realign the system several times during a flight because the systems can drift. This magnetic tracking system makes all the corrections itself, so that we pilots never have to adjust the alignment.”...
&
"...“At first we keep things easy because the helmet is new,” he says of the training process. “Pilots train some with the HMD in the simulator, but it falls short of what it’s like to really fly. One of the best testimonies I’ve heard is that, after they’ve flown for a while, pilots forget they’re flying with the symbols on their heads.”
_______________

‘Such A Capable Helmet’ July 1, 2010 [same article referred to on this thread: http://www.f-16.net/index.php?name=PNph ... ble#205993]

http://www.aviationtoday.com/av/issue/c ... 68788.html

"...(HMDS) that superimposes flight and target symbology on the view seen through the pilot’s helmet visor. This virtual Head-Up Display slews sensors and weapons to pilot head movements, and it enables the wearer to de-clutter the picture and zoom into targets with hands on sidestick and throttle."... [and voice commands]
&
"...Target analysis and designation are done largely on the cockpit display...."
&
"...In production fighters, the pilot will see symbology created by Lockheed Martin. “Those same symbols that he sees in the cockpit are replicated in front of his face,” said Brugal.

Without the color cues available on head-down displays, Lockheed Martin engineers flag items with flashing, cross-hatching and other man-machine interface tricks...."
&
"...In contrast to the monocular JHMCS, the binocular HMDS covers a 30 by 40 degree field of view and supplements projected day and night video with raster-like symbology. The field of view is determined by packaging tradeoffs. “You have a limited amount of space available on the pilot’s head,” Brugal said. “You can only displace those projectors so many degrees. Displace them farther, and the helmet gets very wide and causes interference.”...

...The pilot can turn EO DAS helmet imagery on or off and stabilize the image at a given point to look away, study targets on the head-down display and return to the head-up scene. The HMDS also cues the pilot to air and ground threats outside the immediate field of view...."

"...AN/APG-81 radar generates HMDS cues for the pilot in combat. The high-resolution radar with Ground Moving Target Indicator functions zooms into ground targets or tracks and prioritizes targets in the air. “It’s really a target designator, whether it be an air-to-air target or a designated point on the ground. Any of that stuff can be put on that symbology on the HUD. You have an arrow pointing to that target in space,”...

spazsinbad · by **spazsinbad** » 29 Jan 2012, 03:29

Gums, it will be interesting also to know if this video simulation? of the HMDS display is accurate. Thanks. See page 6 of this thread for: http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopi ... rt-75.html

StrikeEye (F-35B) - Mission 9.mov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 0AXb2LFw84 (found by 'alloycowboy')

There are three screenshots from the video on that page also.

Gums · by **Gums** » 29 Jan 2012, 10:34

Salute!

Great video from the PR folks about the HMD.

It's what I expect - a "virtual" HUD when the pilot looks toward the front. And it does not appear to be cluttered. Over the years the Viper HUD added more and more stuff, but at least the pilot could de-clutter.

One thing we helped the newbies with was to concentrate on the essential data in the HUD and on the displays. Don't try to contemplate all the data from all the sources. Let your mind "de-clutter". A "busy" display has its human factor problems. So the pilot needs a means of restricting data that is not relevant to the task at hand. Ya think?

I am trying my best to get into the sim at Eglin and provide a no sierra report to this august body of F-35 fanatics, heh heh. I have some serious payback checks to cash, so the goal is within reach.

I'll keep on keeping on.

Gums sends...

fiskerwad · by **fiskerwad** » 29 Jan 2012, 14:12

Morning!
And it is not just the HUD, the MFD pages in the Viper had declutter settings, too. As developers it was our job to provide as much information as possible but still allow the actual user to tailor what he wanted to see. More is not always better.
fisk

neptune · by **neptune** » 29 Jan 2012, 19:09

Gums wrote:..There's the "abort" button for the drone pilot. I assume the drone goes to some alt and course for the next attempt. And remember, "drones are fearless"....

..the drone should rtb for armament or "end of mission". Aborting would be by the LSO, with the fearless drone hook accuracy is within inches of "the wire". With the BAMS flying for 30 hours, a "broken" drone could return to land with tanking. This "automatic landing stuff" will be available to all tailhooks (COD, F-18, UCAS) as additional options or info for the aviator to rtb. The F-18 that has flown this system is the only one with actual experience.

Orangeburst · by **Orangeburst** » 29 Jan 2012, 23:53

Gums wrote:Salute!

P.S. How many folks here other than Outlaw have flown a jet with a great HUD?

Gums..

I have never flown a jet with a HUD, but had quite a bit of experience with my personal remote control flyer, ie drone. All I used was (2) MK 1's. Sometimes just one when the sun was bright.

None of those shmancy high tech gimos. Never even botherd too look at any gauges. Just pure flyin ability, I tell ya. Until I crashed it. Luckily, I walked away unharmed.

spazsinbad · by **spazsinbad** » 30 Jan 2012, 00:42

Chapter 5
Head-Mounted Displays by James E. Melzer | Kaiser Electro-Optics Inc.

www.davi.ws/avionics/TheAvionicsHandbook_Cap_5.pdf (2.6Mb) JHMCS

"...U.S. Air Force and Navy’s Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System helmet-mounted display..."

spazsinbad · by **spazsinbad** » 30 Jan 2012, 08:01

RHINO (Super Hornet) Cockpit (somehow better than F-35?). As usual the graphic quality is not good because of the many processes under which it has been put (see earlier post). ['meatshield' complaint here: http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopi ... t-135.html SCROLL DOWN]

sprstdlyscottsmn · by **sprstdlyscottsmn** » 30 Jan 2012, 14:53

spazsinbad wrote:Chapter 5
Head-Mounted Displays by James E. Melzer | Kaiser Electro-Optics Inc.

www.davi.ws/avionics/TheAvionicsHandbook_Cap_5.pdf (2.6Mb) JHMCS

"...U.S. Air Force and Navy’s Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System helmet-mounted display..."

So I see heading, speed (KIAS and Mach), Altitude, horizon, boresight, weapon selected, target direction indicator, taget box, target alt, target distance, and some other things I can't be sure of at this point. And it looks clear-cut to me.

spazsinbad · by **spazsinbad** » 30 Jan 2012, 21:24

This recent F-35 simulator view from a recent UK article suggests what the pilot sees with the HMDS HUD view superimposed over the runway in the simulator: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/ ... 34x445.jpg Caption: "Instrumentation inside the cockpit of an F-35 simulator"

F16VIPER · by **F16VIPER** » 03 Feb 2012, 22:50

CodeOnemagazine has published a series of fotographs of the pilots wearing their flightgear.
Very interesting
http://www.codeonemagazine.com/gallery_ ... em_id=1692
Does anyone have clear, sharp photos of the white taped helmets.
F16VIPER

spazsinbad · by **spazsinbad** » 03 Feb 2012, 23:37

Apart from white helmet style HMDS II photos on this thread there is only one other AFAIK here - and good luck with the 'clear/sharp':

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopi ... t-180.html
http://www.f-16.net/attachments/rusnok_ ... 4b_919.jpg

Another ordinary style view: http://images.gizmag.com/gallery_lrg/f35helmet-3.jpg

SpudmanWP · by **SpudmanWP** » 03 Feb 2012, 23:56

spazsinbad · by **spazsinbad** » 04 Feb 2012, 01:01