Fighter Pilots Will Don AR Helmets For Training (washingtonpost.com) 25
In the near future, "Top Gun" may get a reboot. Roughly one year from now, fighter pilots will begin flying with helmets outfitted with visors that can augment reality and place digital replicas of enemy fighter jets in their field of vision. For the first time, pilots will get to fly in the air and practice maneuvering against imitations of highly advanced aircraft made by countries like China and Russia. From a report: It is also part of the U.S. military's investment of billions into virtual reality, artificial intelligence and algorithms to modernize the way it fights wars. The pilot training solution, created by military technology company Red6, will be rolled out to the Air Force first as part of its $70 million contract with the branch. Company and former military officials say the technology will be a safe, cheap and realistic way to ensure American pilots are prepared to battle the best fighter planes in the world.
"Better, faster, cheaper," said Daniel Robinson, founder and chief executive of Red6. "This is the way we'll train them in the future." The military wants new 'robot ships' to replace sailors during battle For decades, the way America trains its fighter pilots has changed little. Aviators from the Air Force and Navy often start their training flying on a Northrop T-38 jet, often using a similar syllabus to one that has been around since the 1960s. From there, they train on planes, such as F-22 or F-35 fighter jets, that they will fly during their career.
"Better, faster, cheaper," said Daniel Robinson, founder and chief executive of Red6. "This is the way we'll train them in the future." The military wants new 'robot ships' to replace sailors during battle For decades, the way America trains its fighter pilots has changed little. Aviators from the Air Force and Navy often start their training flying on a Northrop T-38 jet, often using a similar syllabus to one that has been around since the 1960s. From there, they train on planes, such as F-22 or F-35 fighter jets, that they will fly during their career.
can you buzz the tower! (Score:2)
can you buzz the tower!
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can you buzz the tower!
Yes and doing so comes with a free court-martial!
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True- but it's a virtual one.
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You can't handle an REAL ONE!
At least just showing off prowess is not ironic (Score:3)
As I wrote elsewhere:
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful techno
F22? (Score:4, Interesting)
F35 is different of course. That looks to be the next workhorse military jet and will be around for a long time.
yeah, but, all that training.. (Score:2)
or are they all just the cook?
only if (Score:2)
This is useful only if the flying is to be done remotely. If the pilot is in the plane, then the accelerations from a real mechanical flight simulator are needed.
Re:only if (Score:4, Insightful)
Except the summary suggests the helmets are to be worn in actual cockpit doing actual maneuvers. That they only simulated part is the enemy aircraft. The actual pilot training is still occurring in real flight, just the opponent and presumably munitions are simulated. Maybe the opponents are controlled by pilots in a simulator, but the specific target of the training is getting the real flight experience.
VR enemy an addition to existing AR system (Score:2)
Virtual enemy aircraft is a nice addition an already capable AR system.
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I think that's what the critic in the final paragraph is saying: "With pilots, augmented reality "i
Beyond visual range rarely used (Score:2)
What is strange about this is that pilots generally only 'see' their opponents at beyond visual range anyways.
Not so much in combat. We have had beyond visual range (BVR) weapons for many decades. And one of the first lessons learned from BVR is to not use them, to have a pilot get an eyeball on a target before shooting it.
In theory, with perfect information, one could use BVR since you know where all the friendlies are. In practice it didn't work out that way, tragic friendly fire incidents occurred. Different service branches, different allied nations, information may not get sent to all those it should have.
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But this is for training. This is Augmented Reality vs Artificial Reality. The pilot is flying a real plane, and seeing the real controls for the most part, it is just simulating the enemy in his sights. vs. the old way, where they would just have to practice maneuvers without an opponent, or riskier with someone from your own side flying as an opponent.
The regular helmets they fly with are AR (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes indeed. But these helmets are specialty helmets specifically for training that allow the pilot to interact with "enemies" that are virtual as part of their training. So, similar to what they already use, but with a training application.
Sounds like they added AR enemies to the existing system. If the helmet goes into the air it needs to have most of the other capabilities of the standard helmet. Very useful for training. However its only difference may be optional software, and the two helmets are kept strictly apart so they are not mixed up on a day when a real fight occurs. Some cosmetic changes might help in that. But if it flies, I expect it is largely the same.
Advanced aircraft? Russia? (Score:2)
Those two do not go together. The derelicts from Russia can't even gain air superiority over a country whose air force is 1/10 the size (if that).
It's been shown all those "war games" Russia put on were literally for show. There were no active denial scenarios, no competition among pilots, no nothing. It was get the plane in the air, fire some rockets, then bank hard left/right. I dare say if you were to pick out some pilots from the airlines they could at least hold their own against Russian pilots.
A lot of "Russian" aerospace was actually Ukraine (Score:2)
Advanced aircraft? Russia? Those two do not go together.
Well a lot of "Russian" aerospace was actually Ukraine.
Only Bright Targets Over Dark Backgrounds (Score:1)
In their public videos, Red 6 shows pilots wearing their AR helmet while flying in Red 6's own ultralite demonstration aircraft. There has yet to be any details on how they would integrate their system into an F-22 or F-35 helmet, which both have considerable AR capability built in.
One issue is that the bright AR target is superimposed over the darker environment. There is no way to show a dark aircraft against a brighter sky. It is also not clear to me how they precicely update the location and orienta
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Seems like it shouldn't be that hard to selectively darken parts of the field of view with an LCD matrix shutter.
Also handy... (Score:2)