Posted on 10/30/2015 3:38:52 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
The helmets for Britain's new Lightning II F-35 stealth jet fighter cost £260,000 each.
The high-tech helmets are linked to six cameras embedded in the jet which combine images to provide a 360 degree view allowing the pilot to "see through" the airframe.
Flight and targetting information is beamed directly onto the visor, into the line of vision of the pilot.
Britain has said it will order 48 of the £70 million jets, which will fly from RAF Marham and the UK's new aircraft carriers.
Earlier this month it emerged lightweight pilots have been temporarily banned from flying Britain’s new stealth fighter after tests showed they could break their necks if they eject.
Pilots weighing less than 9 stone 10lbs have been told they cannot fly the new F-35 because of problems with the ejection seat.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Don't drop it then.
I just had this ‘flash’ of an image .... a low flying jet, kicking it at a couple of hundred miles an hour, right down the strip of Las Vegas ...
9 stone 10 lbs = 136 lbs
I don’t know about anyone else, but if situational awareness like this for a manned aircraft is that expensive, why couldn’t a higher performing aircraft be made as cheaply and linked to a remote control station?
Long way from the leather “helmets” of W.W.1.
Long way from the leather “helmets†of W.W.1.
......................................................
and World War II.
Very cool that the helmet allows the pilot a 360 degree view so he can check blindspots though. That should definitely be a bonus.
Especially when parallel parking.
Cheap doesn’t ring a bell when talking about the F-35.
Much less expensive and drone driven rather than manned. Makes sense to me. No man could withstand the G forces capable of being generated by an unmanned aircraft with even greater capabilities than the F-35. Who needs stealth when you can “swarm” and kill. We already have the tactics and the pilots we just need the numbers.
Full-scope situational awareness and real-time responsive remote control is just as good as a pilot in the seat IMO.
"Lightweight pilots" may be a euphemism for "female pilots". Most adult men weigh more than 136 pounds.
One thing about manned planes: control of the plane cannot be jammed, and cannot be hacked, unlike UAVs.
So why do they need 360 degree situational awareness, which may be useful in a dogfight...but there are no guns available.
I thought that the whole point of the F35 was to use missiles to shoot down over the horizon attackers.
Amen to that, and it is the near future, guaranteed.
You bring up a good point, and another just like it would be the necessity of each drone having a unique IP and system address making them individually hackable rather than group hackable. Is there sufficient bandwidth for thousands of planes to be controlled remotely with no or little latency. Time will tell.
It’s supposedly replacing the CAS mission of the A-10. Kind of hard when the fighter is designed for over the horizon combat. The end.
So how is it going to do that....does it have a gatling gun fitted....or is it going to hover over the enemy troops and blast them with down thrust from the fan...?
Unless the UAV controller is in a trailer 100 miles or so from the drone, with ‘line of sight’ coms, you’re gonna have latency.
Yea, you can control a drone from a central control in Missouri, but 23,000 miles up, and 23,000 miles down plus processing handoffs, encryption and decryption of commands, etc... You’re gonna have latency.
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