Predator-Style Helmets Allow Pilots to See Through Planes

nitroy2k writes "It is only the neck and shoulders that prove there is a human being in there somewhere. And this isn't any Star Trek or Final Fantasy kind of trick, but the next generation of RAF fighter pilots' look, which kinda makes you wish you were in the army." And you thought Air Wolf had badass headgear.

The scenic view

[GaryOlson]

Seeing right through their own aircraft fuselage to the ground below...

How many pilots will get vertigo the first time they look down thru their seats at the ground zipping by a few thousand feet below? I would. Will the masks include organic fluid caching and isolation?

Re:What is the point?

[smitth1276]

That's the whole point of the JSF... cost effectiveness. It is one modular plane with 3 variants: a traditional fighter, a STOVL marine version, and a more rugged carrier version with a hook, etc. It is designed to be one plane that can be produced for all branches (hence the term "Joint" Strike Fighter), which will lower production costs. It will replace pretty much every fighter-like aircraft in use, except for the F-22.

This plane will be the "high-tech stealth plane" taking radars out. And if it is ever engaged in a dog-fight at supersonic speeds, the pilot has done something wrong. They almost didn't even put a gun on it (only one variant got a gun, IIRC), because it is meant to take out threats WELL before they are visible.

One more thing, supersonic speeds are essential for combat aircraft... they have to get in and hit targets before anyone hears them coming (have you never been to an airshow where they do a low supersonic pass?). Supersonic capability itself isn't all that expensive... supercruising capability is more expensive, and JSF doesn't do that.

Re:The scenic view

[dshk]

You fear of instability. An aircraft is stable. If you sit in it in a seat you are in a stable situation. I haven't tried it but I guess even if you jump out of it with a parachute you feel safe, because the parachute and you together make a stable system (you can assume that you eventually open it, it opens successfully etc.). On the other hand if you stand on a 1 meter tall table you fear because you are in a physically instable position.

Re:The Pressing Question

[meringuoid]

With the cold war over, and the major super powers having no one to have air battles with, is it really necessary to spend huge amounts of money to fight an enemy that doesn't exist? I mean, back in the Cold War, it made sense-ish, but since the current battle is against "terror", and "terror" doesn't have an air force ...

The Russians are probing European air defences again; I think it was just last month one of their bombers was intercepted over the North Sea by the new RAF Typhoons. Used to happen all the time in the Cold War - just testing how watchful the West really is, how quick to respond to an intruder. Nothing outright hostile, just a... friendly... reminder that they're there. North Korea is opening up to outside business investment and to tourism from the South to Mt Paektu, but on the other hand they've been playing with nukes lately, so that one could go either way. Not so long ago there was the war in Yugoslavia, right on our doorstep, yet little got done about it till the Yanks got involved - that was embarrassing. Belarus is run by a weirdo who keeps trying to re-establish the Soviet Union despite the fact that the Russians want as little to do with him as possible. The president of Turkmenistan is an egomaniac who makes Kim Jong Il look positively humble, though he seems content to keep to his own frontiers. Any day now our esteemed allies could drag us into a war with Iran. And it's probably only a matter of time before we have to do something about Zimbabwe.

Sure, today we're mostly fighting Iraqi rebels, against whom the air force can do relatively little - but that won't be the case forever. Britain gets into an awful lot of fights.

Re:army?

[meringuoid]

No, the F-35 is more of a stealth fighter than the Harrier, which is actually being replaced by the Eurofighter Typhoon. BAE is in-fact involved in the development of the F-35 as well.

I thought the general idea was that Typhoons would replace Tornadoes, while JSFs would replace Harriers? They were looking into a navalised Typhoon for use on the new carriers, but I'm not sure what became of that.

A half-measure at best

[Thagg]

Or maybe a quarter-measure.

Fighter planes design is very compromised by the requirement that the pilot be able to see out the canopy. Typically, you find the cockpit cantaleivered way out in front of the center of gravity. In more recent planes, the requirements of stealth require dramatic measures to enable vision from the cockpit while still maintaining a low radar profile. I feel, too, that in any serious war you're going to find that the easiest way to bring down an airplane is to blind the pilot with lasers.

So, put the pilot right in the middle of the airplane in an opaque cockpit. Put a large number of wide-bandwidth sensors on the plane that would enable the pilot to see better than he could with his own eyes, certainly over a wider frequency and contrast range. You could armor this cockpit much more easily, it could be far more stealthy, and it could be far more structurally sound. You could have redundant sensors that could be deployed if the primary sensors are blinded.

Now, some might say that we should go all the way and put the pilots on the ground -- and they have a point. But, I think that the amount of bandwidth available inside the plane would be far greater than you could ever hope to transmit securely over the air.

Thad Beier