Avionics go to war

Advanced helmet sight systems are being designed to help the situational awareness of those pilots who actually still fly aircraft, while also being seamlessly integrated with the aircraft itself.

The latest development in the transformation of how manned combat aircraft are flown is the introduction of advanced helmet-display systems, providing the ultimate in situational awareness (SA). All key flight and mission data is integrated into a single display, projected immediately onto the pilot's helmet visor. It can show the aircraft's position and heading relative to the ground, can give target and navigational routes to follow, and can give “look-and-shoot” target locations. When added to voice-activated weapons release, these advanced helmet systems allow a full kill option by just looking at the target and giving a verbal command to shoot.

Synthetic training can now extend into realms of virtual realism that could hardly be imagined even a couple of decades ago, but, in the same timescale, digital avionics and advanced optronics technology has transformed the capabilities of integrated helmet displays. They enable the mass of data now flowing to the pilot from a multitude of sensors to be accessed simply and within a normal field of vision, with the ability to react instantly without taking one's eyes off the outside world for a moment.