RAF Pilots Blinded At 1000 Mph By Helmet Technical Glitch 154
codeusirae writes "RAF pilots were left 'blinded' by a barrage of images while flying at speeds of over 1,000 mph when a number of technical glitches hit their high-tech helmets. The visors were supposed to provide the fighter pilots with complete vision and awareness, but problems with the display produced a blurring known as 'green-glow,' meaning they were unable to see clearly.The green glow occurred when a mass of information was displayed on the helmet-mounted display systems, including radar pictures and images from cameras mounted around the aircraft."
Where's the manual override? (Score:5, Insightful)
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That would be smart and logical. Of course they couldn't have put a switch in!
Re: Where's the manual override? (Score:5, Funny)
Luke, you switched off your targeting computer! What's wrong?
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Sir (Score:5, Funny)
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Their helmets were mint jammed.
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RAF? They come from the land that invented plaid.
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Just don't go into a kilt.
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RAF? They come from the land that invented plaid.
Are you implying that the RAF comes from the land now known as Austria [answers.com]?
Relying exclusively on electronic technology (Score:5, Informative)
Relying exclusively on electronic technology introduce a single point of point of failure. Fly by wires, car ecu etc.
Not being able to fall back to some kind of manual mechanical control introduces all kinds of vulnerabilities. Whether it is a glitch in the software, solar flares, aliens or something else ;-)
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/10/29/208205/toyotas-killer-firmware [slashdot.org]
http://www.ecutesting.com/toyota.html [ecutesting.com]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8026971/Aliens-have-deactivated-British-and-US-nuclear-missiles-say-US-military-pilots.html [telegraph.co.uk]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_control_unit [wikipedia.org]
Re:Relying exclusively on electronic technology (Score:5, Insightful)
The pilot is already a single point of failure.
Re:Relying exclusively on electronic technology (Score:5, Insightful)
That's how I approach things: If there's already 1 single point of failure, why not introduce a bunch of others?
Always take a bomb on the plane (Score:2)
Perfectly sensible, it's much safer.
After all, what's the chance of them all going wrong?
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yep +1 funny
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I would hope that when flying at 1000mph+ the pilot has planned ahead at least several seconds of safe trajectory, even more reaction time than one might need when taxiing, should be more than enough time to get the unexpectedly distracting HUD switched off. I'd actually be more worried for safety if the pilot became suddenly and unexpectedly vision impaired while rolling to a parking space on a carrier, than at 1000mph+ in the sky.
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The RAF do train at below-horizon altitudes. Several seconds of clear air in front of you isn't guaranteed in such situations, and that's assuming you stay level.
Of course, the easy response is to pull up..
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"Of course, the easy response is to pull up.."
Yes. If, of course, by the time you've decided the 'green screen' isn't going to fix itself, you still know where up is.
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kudos to you. You are a smart being.
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The US has started a program to convert some of the old F-14's to pilot less drones instead of just scrapping them. Without a pilot the current generation of fighters could utilize all the performance built in to the air frame.
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If I were a jet fighter pilot I would be getting worried about my future as a military aviator. Some how I don't think sitting on the ground operating a drone provides the same level of excitement. The pilot is becoming more of a passenger these days. The modern generation of stealth fighters and bombers such as the B-2 are literally impossible to fly by a mere human.
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... The modern generation of stealth fighters and bombers such as the B-2 are literally impossible to fly by a mere human.
They said that about helicopters, a long time ago before they had fly-by-wire. Even hobby RC-pilots could learn to fly them, and that was before the "smart" toys they have now.
(But that doesn't mean it was easy...)
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The B-2 cannot be flown without fly by wire. The B-117 was in the same category. Both of these planes as well as today's jet fighter craft would never have been built if a human pilot was required.
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On average any pilot of a B-2 would need to make over 500+ adjustments every five minutes just to keep it in the air and flying in a straight line during good weather and minimal winds. I never said there were planes that a human could fly without any computer systems. The skills required to pilot a helicopter has little in common with the skills flying military planes engineered for stealth and speed.
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Edmonton, Alberta, Canada had pilot less suburb trains in 1981, maybe before.
I agree with your questioning since I have seen so many times on TV major civilian carrier planes crashing because of pilot errors. Some pilots had 30 years+ of flying experience but they fucked-up due to lack of training with new technologies more often than new technologies screwed up.
RAF pilots on principle shouldn't be taken as bozos although, like in the civilian cases I have reviewed but who knows?
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> The pilot is already a single point of failure.
Following that logic, so is the plane.
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One "single point of failure" is a lot better than connecting them in "series" !
Re:Relying exclusively on electronic technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Fly by wire has multiple redundancies. It's not a single point of failure any more than hydraulic control system is.
Re:Relying exclusively on electronic technology (Score:4, Insightful)
He means that the whole system depends on "electronics". For him a better option would be electronics + hydraulics as a backup or something. In any case, the story is about the helmet. The pilot can always take it off...
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He means that the whole system depends on "electronics".
"Air" is also a single point of failure, then. As is "metal".
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Fuel is an even more dangerous point of failure. I mean carrying around explosive burn liquids while traveling at high speed doesn't make any sense.
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Hydraulics is fine for a dumb servo, like power steering in a car.
Fly by wire is an entirely different thing. You can't substitute the former for the latter.
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The problem is that you have to. Nowadays the fighter jets have become so complex to fly, with so many control surfaces, that a pilot would not be able to do it by himself. So he tells the computer what he wants to do, and the computer interprets and responds by changing the surfaces.
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I'm perfectly aware of what fly by wire is, thank you.
I'm also aware of what former and latter mean.
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... the helmet. The pilot can always take it off...
Can he? I mean, in practical terms? The space is small, hands are needed on the controls, it's the main display screen . . . it may not be even possible, let alone a good idea at high speed. And if it is, then you've got a big heavy helmet loose waiting to conk the pilot in the face on the next turn.
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In large plane civil aviation, even that has redundancy. There are two sets of control hardware, on each side of the cockpit. There are two pilots, who are even required to pick different items from the in flight menu in case of food poisoning.
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I believe the food poisoning prevention rule is referred to as the "Leslie Nielsen Protocol"...
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Is that supposed to be reassuring or worrying?
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Probably the same, as the only thing you'd lose is hydraulic assist, just like you did. Electric parts can be driven by the battery.
Re:Relying exclusively on electronic technology (Score:5, Informative)
You really need to learn more about modern aircraft. When an aircraft is designed there is a trade off between stability and maneuverability. The more stable something is the less maneuverable it is. Today's aircraft are very unstable and very manuverable. Electronocs allow that becouse they can make the thousands of control inputs per second to keep the aircraft stable. Most modern fighters would fly apart of if the electronics failed even if there were mechanical backups.
By the way, the backup for the visor failing is lift the visor and use the cockpit readouts.
Re:Relying exclusively on electronic technology (Score:4, Interesting)
By the way, the backup for the visor failing is lift the visor and use the cockpit readouts.
Of course they did that. I don't know who would assume otherwise. Do you think, while shitting their pants, that they continued to go +1000mph without lifting their visors?
The problem still remains. In the middle of a dog fight is not where you want to have to lift your visor that gave you all those nifty capabilities. Cockpit readouts cannot replace those abilities either as the advantage is not the same. Instead of being inside the helmet they should really consider making the glass around the cockpit the interface itself. Graceful failure allows the glass to be transparent. Or they could make the glass in the visor do the same thing. Lifting not required. Worse case scenario there is a button easily accessible that cuts all power to the display systems turning them transparent more or less instantly.
Plus, imagine if Clint Eastwood in Firefox accidentally restarted the system and it wanted him to think in Chinese? I would be fucked cuz the only thing I could reliably think about in Chinese is found on a menu.
It's not so much about redundancy as it is graceful failure in situations like this.
Re:Relying exclusively on electronic technology (Score:5, Informative)
In the middle of a dog fight is not where you want to have to lift your visor that gave you all those nifty capabilities.
Dogfight? What century do you think this is? I'm not really an expert, but my understanding of modern air battles is that they launch missiles at each other from extremely long distances.
Dogfighting still a necessity sometimes (Score:3)
Dogfight? What century do you think this is? I'm not really an expert, but my understanding of modern air battles is that they launch missiles at each other from extremely long distances.
That's what they thought would happen around the time of the Vietnam war. They even went so far as to remove the guns from the fighter aircraft. Turned out they were full of shit. Missiles did not eliminate the need for air combat maneuvering (aka a dogfight) and actually put their pilots at a disadvantage at times. These lessons were a big part of the reason why pilot schools like TOPGUN [wikipedia.org] were created. Even the most modern fighters like the F22 [wikipedia.org] carry onboard 20mm cannons to this day.
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Except for the occasional mishap where they open fire on their own troops.
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No no no, it is up to the other flying object to identify itself and clear a friend-or-foe test, otherwise the default resolution is to open fire.
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No system can do that. At least not on its own.
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RoE can be changed.
There's little point in having BVRAAMs if you have to get close enough to see the target's paint job before firing them.
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The cannon is useful as a last resort weapon. It can even be used for strafing ground targets. Although this is highly not advisable given current fighters are usually made of aluminum and fiber and crap like that which can't withstand AA flak gun fire. The missile hit rates have got much better but we still need to see a modern air to air war using the latest generation of FLIR weapons on both sides of the conflict. Iraq due to sanctions did not possess the Su-27 or its associated weapon systems the R-73 a
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Single point of failure is a design choice (Score:2)
Relying exclusively on electronic technology introduce a single point of point of failure. Fly by wires, car ecu etc.
Fly/Drive-by-wire only has a single point of failure if you design it that way. Fly-by-Wire systems are regularly designed to be multiply redundant [wikipedia.org] or even have mechanical backups. Because fly-by-wire is typically lighter it is often possible to have more safety systems in place. Mechanical systems despite seeming dependable are often actually less reliable if you actually bother to check the data. It's all in how the product is designed. Sometimes a single point of failure is the only option but more
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Sure, if that's what the opposite of having a single point of failure was, but since it isn't that's irrelevant.
Green helmet (Score:1)
Hard to focus on flying when your helmet has a green glow
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Hard to focus on flying when your helmet has a green glow
That's what I was thinking at the last Grateful Dead concert I attended. Trippy green glowing helmets can be distracting during flight!
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If you want some trippy shit try turning on the motion blur effect in VLC media player. If you're trashed, hammered, and unsure what reality actually is after Halloween, it gets very interesting with motion blur on.
1,000 mph, so what (Score:1)
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Re:1,000 mph, so what (Score:5, Interesting)
TFA didn't explain the problem well enough. It's not some sort of malfunction that goes away when you punch reset. It's a design issue that happens any (and every) time it tries to display too much information at once. It's the light from the display that creates the problem, just like a TV lighting a darkened room.
The workaround is to display less information. Probably that would cause a political issue as someone's favorite kitchen sink gets relegated to the panel display.The open question: is it still useful once they remove enough displayed information to let the pilot see.
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With as much money is involved, I honestly don't understand why:
1) It's not done in the cockpit glass itself. We have the tech for that. Add a couple of Kinect like sensors and you can know where the pilot is looking to adjust the display. I'm not an expert, but I think that would account for the position of the pilot's eyes and what he is actually looking at. Perhaps an overlay on the pilot's dominant eye that is always transparent and only used to detect proper viewing angles. Heck, why not use Google Gla
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HUD is currently projected onto a clear panel in front of the canopy. There is simply no way you are gong to fly close enough to the plane to see anything useful.
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Or maybe add a dimmer switch? For £30mil they should be able to swing for something that's been standard on every display screen ever since the invention of screens...
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Glitch caused Benny Hill reruns to show up (Score:2)
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I think you're full of shit on this one. However, I really want to believe you, only because it would be so damn epic....
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So the pilots where blinded after they clawed their eyes out?
Wrong color (Score:2)
Amber CRTs are easier on the eyes...
Re:Wrong color (Score:5, Funny)
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If its 'information overload', perhaps they should be using color displays. It might be better to separate different information types or alert levels by color.
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The problem of this is the nature of the display.
HUDs aren't green because it's convenient, but because they're easy on night vision (it takes time to acclimate to the darkness of a cockpit and blinding bright lights are a great way to ruin it). Additionally, a HUD works because it's only reflective to the color of the display (because the data is pr
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HUDs aren't green because it's convenient, but because they're easy on night vision
There is some disagreement on this. The rods in the human eye are more sensitive to lower levels of green light than red. Resolution is better, but green will reduce human night vision more so than red at higher illumination levels.
Green is more compatible with military night vision equipment, as that is more sensitive at the red and near infrared wavelengths. However, this isn't an issue with helmet HUDs as the light doesn't leak out and back into the night vision optics.
Likewise (as you pointed out) hel
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That's what I thought until I got into Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Everything looked yellow for a week.
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I question the wisdom of turning people's cell phones into emergency information networks like this.
Understanding myself, and user interface design, once you inundate the users with emergency messages that don't pertain to them they no longer have impact.
That is dangerous and counter productive to the goal in the first place. While it's incredibly tragic for parents to be dealing with something like that, it will just end up being ignored.
It's better for it to be rarely used at all, and with a lot more impa
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So What Did You Do Today? (Score:2)
Oh nothing, just flew 1000 MPH completely blind.
The article looks fishy (Score:5, Informative)
âoeBut for now, thereâ(TM)s only so much data you can put in front of the pilotâ(TM)s eyes before it all merges, especially at night. He or she has got to take in information about their speed, altitude, dive and climb angles, and manage their fuel levels and weapons systems. Add images of the surrounding airspace and it all becomes too much. Essentially, the pilots were being blinded.â
The reporter seems to take the phrase "green glow" literally, rather than figuratively. The blinding referred to in the quote is information overload. The 1,000 mph figure seems merely illustrative, rather than a point at which the helmets suddenly malfunctioned. Information overload is a serious problem for pilots and must be considered in aircraft design, but this appears to be a case of poor design rather than the display failing in mid flight. Perhaps someone out there has better information.
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What's the difference ?
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Information overload is easy to come by in a cockpit. I work with avionics equipment, and I get to talk to pilots fairly regularly. By and large, they all like glass cockpits over the old, analog alternative. It makes the panel in front of them look cleaner, and they can navigate pages using mouse-like controllers(of course this depends on whether the manufacturer of their displays also produces such a controller).
When it's all said and done, though, the pilots I've talked to say they only use a small fr
Useless and sensationalistic (Score:5, Interesting)
I have flown with the current generation Joint Helmet Mounted Cuing System (JHMCS) not the F-35 system, but here is what I can tell you.
1- JHMCS has a one button HOTAS blanking. I am sure F-35 has the something similar. Which means if the symbology gets to be too much you can blank it with a single button push and you are back to a regular old airplane. With JHMCS you will be in a fighter with a HUD for backup, like F-15 or FA-18, while in F-35 you will have to rely on your head-down display, but the airplane keeps flying just fine at 150Kts, 500Kts, 1000kts. It really doesn't matter.
2- The article doesn't really address the fundamental problem. F-35 was designed for the helmet to be the primary flight reference (main instrument), and has no HUD. Like I said, I fly with JHMCS, and it is an awesome tool. The advantage of being able to point your weapon system wherever you look, and likewise have your weapon system point your eyes on target can not be overstated. That being said, it is not good enough to fly instruments. Pointing errors, alignment problems, finicky connectors, etc. are more than just trivial technical problems to be solved. Small shifts or changes in sitting height make minor (0.5 to 1 degree) pointing errors. I routinely adjust alignment at least 2 times a flight.
The decision to have no HUD was (as I understand) based on weight, and it was a bad one. We were putting HUDs+gyros in airplanes for a couple generations before we trusted the HUD alone to be the Primary Flight Reference. Should have done the same thing with helmets.
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Lets be honest, the whole F-35 project has failure/error in design and decisions written all over it. The idea is nice but that says it all really.
Green Glow (Score:2)
Soooo reading slashdot is just like flying 1000 mph?
Intersct at 1000mph (Score:2)
Terrifying! (Score:2)
I fly single engine propeller aircraft with a Vne (Velocity never exceed) of maybe 220mph, but cruising generally about 130mph. The idea of losing vision at that speed is pretty horrible, but at 1000mph it would be terrifying no matter how experienced or brave you are.
When Chuck Yeager was flying the X-1 one time his windows froze up and he could not see out, but at least he still had instruments and landed safely with the help of his chase plane. Not being able to actually see is a big level above that.
Weiners everywhere!!! (Score:2)
Reading between the lines (Score:2)
Link Broken (Score:1)
The link to the Independent appears broken and all I can find is a story in the Daily Mail which seems to be a bit of a rag: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2485533/Technical-fault-left-RAF-pilots-unable-flying-100-million-aircraft.html#comments [dailymail.co.uk]
Can anyone tell when the "blinding" incident actually happened? Daily Mail appears to imply the BAE helmet program was de-funded as a result but there's no way the government could move that fast.
Nobody said "Use the Force" yet? (Score:2)
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"a Jedi's strength flows from the Force." while training Luke (a statement he would repeat in Return of the Jedi); Yoda also explains that "you must feel the Force around you." During their battle in Cloud City, Darth Vader tells Luke "The Force is with you, young Skywalker, but you are not a Jedi yet." Finally, Luke says "May the Force be with you" at the end of the movie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_(Star_Wars) [wikipedia.org]
That's all well and good in a galaxy far, far away where the laws of physics are significantly different than this on. Where laser guns (or what ever they are) travel slower than a rifle round in this one. I suppose that explains whey they can travel at light speed though. RAF/all pilots in this galaxy are not Jedi, nor do they have any midichlorians to "feel" the world around them.
Hyperbole tabloidism? (Score:1)
Do you have any reliable citations for these believes?
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"Believes" don't require citations. He's not quoting anyone else; he's stating his opinion. If someone says that their microwave oven killed their dog, who was in the garden, and you say that you don't believe that the microwave was the cause, you would be unable to produce a citation (as it was you making the claim), nor would the onus be on you to do so.
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Apparently so...
We scrapped (most of) ours, then bought a whole bunch of stuff from the US (at great expense)
Welcome to Runway UK!