Helmet-mounted displays

Bit of HMDS CGI in this short LM PR Clip.

Interesting rheonomic.

By the way, what does the "q" and "p" variables stand for?

The formula is for getting the Mach number from a pitot-static tube (which measures total and static pressures). I got the equation image from Wikipedia. In their notation, p is the static pressure and qc is the impact pressure (equivalent to dynamic pressure at subsonic speeds). For supersonic speeds the impact pressure is measured behind a shock wave.

Essentially that equation is part of what the air data system solves in real time to provide data to the FLCS and pilot displays.

Bit of HMDS CGI in this short LM PR Clip.

They let the art guys get a bit carried away on that one.

Perhaps 'odd' to post this here however first paragraph says it all....

Guyette earns Marine Corps Test Pilot of the Year award
22 Feb 2018 PEO(JSF) Integrated Test Facility Public Affairs

"NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND, PATUXENT RIVER, Md. – Maj. Robert Guyette, the test pilot who last year led the team of engineers in resolving mission critical deficiencies with the F-35 helmet mounted display, was honored as the Test Pilot of the Year during a ceremony Feb. 8....

...In addition to helping resolve the helmet display issue—which is now with industry partners for final production—his efforts helped to bring the F-35 closer to completing the system development and demonstration phase having served as the project officer for 10 test teams, the pilot for nearly 100 F-35 test plans, and completing more than 600 test points in 2017 for the B and C variants.

Guyette’s missions were dedicated to testing the flying and handling of both the F-35B and F-35C in “the most dynamic and challenging environments,” Lt. Col. Gary Shill, Pax River ITF deputy director, penned in Guyette’s award package. As a short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) weapons expert, Guyette not only conducted high risk tests at high Mach numbers and dynamic pressures, he also executed high risk STOVL mode tests close to the ground.

“His tenacity enabled expansion of the flight envelope for current and future blocks of all F-35B/C aircraft,” Shill wrote....

...Taking it to the fleet, Guyette developed the foundations for the F-35 basic fighter maneuvers tactics; his flight test results were used for mission planning of the first operational deployment of the F-35B earlier this year and will also be used for the F-35C operational test and evaluation period later this year.

The U.S. Naval Academy graduate said he’s been fascinated with aviation and technology since childhood.

“I have always been curious about flight, and more broadly, technology,” Guyette said. “I am constantly taking things apart and wondering about how machines and computers do what they do. This predisposition led me to pursue an Aerospace Engineering degree while at the U.S. Naval Academy, where many of the military instructors are experienced test pilots.”

Even with dozens of “firsts” under his belt as a test pilot developing the fifth generation fighter, Guyette said his most memorable is landing an F-35B vertically on a ship for the first time.

“Despite all of the training, preparation and practice, there is something magical about hovering a fixed-wing airplane over a moving ship,” he said. “It breaks through the stoicism and generates an emotional response. The capability that a hovering F-35B brings to the Marine Corps is not evolutionary, but revolutionary, and when you touch down on the deck for the first time, you realize that the airplane will make a lasting contribution to securing our way of life. “The airplane's performance is truly a testament to the talent, vision, dedication and hard work of our engineers,” he added...."

Source: http://www.navair.navy.mil/index.cfm?fu ... ry&id=6741

Took me a long time earlier to GROK the virtual HUD but thanks to 'QS' eventually I got it - here is a succinct description:

An Australian Update on the F-35 and the RAAF Getting Ready for Its Incorporation Into the Force
27 Mar 2018 SLDinfo

"...[Wing Commander Darren Clare] The F-35A is a lot more powerful, especially at low level. The ‘Helmet Mounted Display’ takes a little bit of getting used to. It’s similar to the one used in the Hornet and Super Hornet [‘Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System’]. [QUE?]

If looking out the side of your cockpit, however, you need to physically face the front to see the [virtual] Head-Up Display for flight vector information, which in the Hornet is presented on a physical HUD...." [and with a flick of a switch (when facing the front) one can see the REAR VIEW through that same 'VIRTUOUS' HUD!]

Source: http://sldinfo.com/an-australian-update ... the-force/

Any news from the legal dispute with Thales/avionix?

Any news from the legal dispute with Thales/avionix?

Only that a year ago, the circuit reversed the dismissal by the judge on a technicality ... off again ... on again ... but that just means the wheels turn slowly.
https://www.law360.com/articles/899585/ ... elmet-case
and last month ..

The Federal Circuit rejected Elbit’s arguments as to what a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand as mere attorney argument that cannot rebut the testimony of Thales’s expert and the PTAB’s reliance on that testimony.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail ... 64a61d35bf

Personally, I think that abstract/mathematic ideas will likely find their roots in some video game from the '90's. But then courts are not exactly known as dispensers of reality ... who knows ... the wheels just keep turning.

FWIW,
BP

....
Personally, I think that abstract/mathematic ideas will likely find their roots in some video game from the '90's. But then courts are not exactly known as dispensers of reality ... who knows ... the wheels just keep turning.

FWIW,
BP

Only partially snarking here. If you recall from "Hidden Figures," Johnson's using Euler's integration method reached back to the 1700's for the math. That is not unusual. The trick is connecting a "new and creative" application of such old ideas. That one claims genius from doing what their professor hoped they learned is silly.

Now I will wax, old man whining, and note what I see today. When we only had 4 MHz chips and 64 k of memory, the machine language code was extremely tight. Today's hardware seems to have encouraged sloppiness in high level language programming. If and when it works, I am not always a fan of the modern methods of getting there. It just seems to be very dependent on having all the hardware you need to just brute force what could be an elegant solution with some serious work. But hey, if the kids want to fight over who has come up with some genius answers that someone had a century ago, more power to them. I just think that there is more truth than not in the Hidden Figures anecdote.

MHO,
BP

F-35 ‘Green Glow’ And Carrier Launch Problems Solved

Landing a fighter on an aircraft carrier in the dead of night is a challenging feat even for the most experienced aviators. But for pilots flying the U.S. Navy F-35C carrier variant, nighttime carrier operations have been made even more difficult by a “green glow” that obscures their ...

Rest behind the paywall.

http://aviationweek.com/awindefense/f-3 ... ems-solved

GREEN GLOW can only be tested on a moonless night at sea. I wonder if this is how 'they' know? Anyway some kind soul will bring us the text perhaps - maybe AvWEAK will unlock it soon? I've not seen THIS OLD story before now but may be elsewhere on forum (have searched this thread - no joy). Anyhoo description good... SPOKE TOO SOON... It would be nice to have the AUTHOR named so searching on that name can be successful but then I searched on SKEWERS (which probably should be 'SKEWED' but HEY I'M NOT AMERICUN) viewtopic.php?f=62&t=16223&p=350731&hilit=skewers#p350731

Pilots to Test Fix for F-35 Helmet 'Green Glow' Problem
16 Aug 2016 Hope Hodge Seck

"..."You could describe it as looking through a dirty window," Briggs said. "It's not so bad on a really bright night. On a dark night it skewers outside light references for pilots. A pilot cannot pick up the lights on the carrier as well as he'd like to, he doesn't necessarily pick up non-lighted signals on the ship as he's taxiing around, he has a harder time picking out aircraft that are flying around."...

...Capt. James Christie, commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron-101, which had 12 pilot-instructors complete daytime carrier qualifications on the F-35C this week, said he hoped software updates would be approved and close to being retrofitted to all F-35 helmets by the end of the year.

Christie said the decreased contrast setting is likely to help all pilots who operate in especially dark environments, without aid from the 'cultural light' of nearby cities. But on carriers out in the middle of the ocean, it was crucial. "I think we just kind of stomped our feet and said, ''we need to have this to be safe around the ship,'" he said.

Briggs said nighttime helmet tests were expected to kick off Aug. 20, during the darkest phase of the moon.
"So we're going to go out on a really dark night and we're going to do our final evaluation on the green glow," he said. "And we think that that problem is solved."..."

Source: https://www.military.com/defensetech/20 ... ow-problem

....
Personally, I think that abstract/mathematic ideas will likely find their roots in some video game from the '90's. But then courts are not exactly known as dispensers of reality ... who knows ... the wheels just keep turning.

FWIW,
BP

Only partially snarking here. If you recall from "Hidden Figures," Johnson's using Euler's integration method reached back to the 1700's for the math. That is not unusual. The trick is connecting a "new and creative" application of such old ideas. That one claims genius from doing what their professor hoped they learned is silly.

Now I will wax, old man whining, and note what I see today. When we only had 4 MHz chips and 64 k of memory, the machine language code was extremely tight. Today's hardware seems to have encouraged sloppiness in high level language programming. If and when it works, I am not always a fan of the modern methods of getting there. It just seems to be very dependent on having all the hardware you need to just brute force what could be an elegant solution with some serious work. But hey, if the kids want to fight over who has come up with some genius answers that someone had a century ago, more power to them. I just think that there is more truth than not in the Hidden Figures anecdote.

MHO,
BP

One of my friends was head engineer for Atlantique II weapon system. At the time noone wanted a HDD in a plane... So yes they had a tight amount of memory for the whole system (13 operators contractual 20msec to take in account any order from any console)... Think it was something like 128 Kb... Code had to be clean!

F-35 HMDS from latest AirForce Magazine July 2018: http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArch ... 202018.pdf (23Mb)

From recent GAO Jun 2018 report:

[PDF referenced by 'marauder2048' here earlier: viewtopic.php?f=58&t=12237&p=395599&hilit=Resolved#p395599 ]

F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER Development Is Nearly Complete, but Deficiencies Found in Testing Need to Be Resolved

"...Helmet Mounted Display (HMD): During low-light flights, the HMD projects a composite night vision video feed on the pilot’s visor. However, the projection system uses back-lit liquid crystal displays, which creates a green glow on the screen as the light escapes through gaps between each pixel. This green glow makes it difficult to see the full resolution of the night vision video feed. Organic light-emitting diode displays avoid this effect by only illuminating the active pixels. The program expects HMDs with this improvement to enter production in early 2019...." https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/692307.pdf (4.1Mb)

PDF of article below Naval Aviation News Spring 2018: http://navalaviationnews.navylive.dodli ... ng2018.pdf (9.2Mb)

Night Vision
30 May 2018 Emanuel Cavallaro, Naval Air Systems Command Public Affairs

"...The 2016 Evaluation
In 2016, test pilot Maj. Robert Guyette wasn’t the first one aboard USS America (LHA 6) to fly the night vision system at sea. Two other test pilots, one American and one British, had flown it over the two previous nights and reported decent results. But Guyette was the first to fly it at very low light.

“The system was actually performing fairly well at higher light levels,” he said. “I was the third in the hopper for the test, and when I went out there and it got really dark, the system performed … unexpectedly bad.”

The six deficiencies Guyette’s test team identified during that initial evaluation meant that, until the system was fixed, pilots wouldn’t be able to fly the aircraft at extremely low light levels. Indeed, the F-35 wouldn’t be flown at low light again until Guyette’s next shipboard test on USS Essex (LHD 2) in 2017.

In February, the 37-year-old Guyette received the Marine Corps Aviation Association’s John Glenn Squadron 2018 Test Pilot Award, in part for his team’s redesign of the night vision system and its subsequent test and evaluation.

Today their fix is being fielded—installed in the combat-coded F-35s belonging to the fleet and partner nations as well as new F-35s coming off the line—ensuring the fifth-generation strike fighter’s capability to launch and recover at night on aircraft carriers and amphibious ships with covert lighting.

Thanks to Guyette and his team, F-35 pilots can now see in the blackest of night.

Drawing the Horizon
The most technologically advanced helmet out there, the F-35 helmet is a remarkable piece of technology, but the task of integrating its sophisticated systems with the jet’s avionics and pilots’ capabilities has proved so complex that it’s taking the combined efforts of engineers, researchers and test pilots like Guyette to work out the kinks.

Above the wearer’s forehead, the helmet bears a prominent circle. That’s the lens of the mid-wave infrared camera system that captures the image that a projector inside the helmet uses to produce the helmet-mounted display for the wearer.

During initial 2016 tests, the camera and projector were working just fine, according to Guyette, but the software that performs the image post-processing for the projector wasn’t fully optimized for the dynamic environment of the F-35 cockpit in low light situations. In short, it was having a hard time drawing the horizon.

“For a pilot, not being able to see the horizon is a major problem,” Guyette said. “You can get disoriented. And some of the lights on the ship were not being filtered correctly, so it was obscuring the landing area—among other issues. It was just generally unsafe.”

That’s not a position Guyette likes to put himself in—flying blind over the sea. But his team regularly practices for such contingencies. They run simulations, rehearse unexpected outcomes and practice emergency procedures. They identify the factors they can control and the factors they can’t. In the cockpit, Guyette depends on that extensive planning and his experience as a test pilot.

“When you’re in a situation where you have degraded visual cues, you transition to an instrument scan and you rely heavily on the airplane and what it’s telling you,” Guyette said. “You rely on the landing signal officer in the tower to talk you down to the deck. That’s his job, to assist you and bring you back down safe.”...

[Then LOTS & LOTS of detail about subsequent and earlier testing - so best read the PDF attached or at URL below]

...“But in this case the improvements were dramatic,” Guyette said. “We were able to clear all six category one deficiencies against it.”...

...Recently he has received several positive calls from squadrons who are deploying with the redesigned night vision system. One of them was from a pilot of the Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 121 “Green Knights,” Guyette’s old squadron and the first operational F-35 squadron. Their feedback on the night vision system will be invaluable.

“It’s gone from a system that was unsafe to a system they can use operationally,” he said. “And those guys are going to use it where it matters.”"

Photo: "F-35 Lightning II helmet. (U.S. Navy photo by Fred Flerlage)" http://navalaviationnews.navylive.dodli ... et_WEB.jpg

Source: http://navalaviationnews.navylive.dodli ... ht-vision/

For the price of those helmets it should support built-in 7.2 high definition sound speakers with external noise cancellation and a curly drinking straw.

F-35 Helmet Bug Means Only Expert Pilots Can Do Night Carrier Landings [BUT THE OLED FIX IS IN!]
28 Aug 2018 Matthew Cox

"ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN -- The Navy is close to fixing a technical bug in the sophisticated F-35 Joint Strike Fighter helmet that amounts to a dangerous hindrance for aviators attempting to land in the black of night on a moving aircraft carrier. F-35C pilots describe the bug as a green glow created by the LED technology in the Generation III helmet-mounted display, which spills over and prevents them from seeing a carrier's lights at night.

"At night on carriers is about the darkest you can get when there is no moon," Cmdr. Tommy "Bo" Locke, commander of Navy Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 125 told a group of defense reporters in the flight hangar on the Abraham Lincoln Monday.

For a week now, Locke's squadron has been participating in Operational Testing I, a milestone that represents the first time the F-35C Lightning II has joined in regular carrier flight operations at sea. The Navy has attempted to fix the helmet problem with software upgrades to allow pilots to dim the green glow, but so far, only the most seasoned F-35C pilots are allowed to make carrier landings at night. Currently, to be qualified to land on the carrier in the dark without fixes to the F-35 helmet, pilots need 50 carrier landings, officials said.

"There are some complexities with the green glow that we deal with right now, but we only do it with experienced pilots," Locke said. "In that really dark environment, you can't get the display down low enough where you can still process the image on the display, and once you bring the display up high enough where you can that information it conflicts with the outside world."

The Navy is working on a solution that relies on "organic LED," or OLED, technology that should be ready for fielding by "sometime early next year," Locke said. "It reduces the green glow; there's a much crisper picture that will allow us to avoid the disorientation with the green glow," he said.

F-35C pilots first reported the problem with the $400,000 helmet in 2012. Since then, the Navy has attempted to fix the problem with software upgrades, but to no avail. "Generically what happens with the older-style helmet, when you want to dim it, you turn it down and there is still a back plane that glows and that causes the green glow," said Rear Adm. Dale Horan, director of the F-35C Fleet Integration Office.

With the new helmet using OLED, "when you want it to work, you turn it on and raise to the level you need, so when it's not working -- when you don't need it -- it's off. So it's not creating that background glow," Horan added. Horan called the fix involving organic LED an "elegant solution."

"From my perspective, there have been a lot of rumors and concerns and issues; they tend to sound insurmountable when you first talk about them," Horan said. "But when you get sailors out there that want to solve the problem and industry that wants to participate and a country that says 'we need this aircraft,' you tend to solve problems."

Source: https://www.military.com/defensetech/20 ... dings.html