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What are the current NVD's for helos?

HAL Pilot

Well-Known Member
None
Contributor
I remember message traffic and articles in the when I was in (80s and 90s) about helos and NVDs. The technology was new and the conditions had to be perfect. Sometimes there wasn’t enough ambient light so they were useless. I also remember complaints about depth perception and field of vision. Lots of talk about them either being a help or a hindrance depending on the conditions and circumstances. Because of this, they weren’t trusted.

In 1987-88 when we were flying patrols in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war, our aft observers in the P-3 were using them. We had one set in the cockpit too. We did have all the issues I mentioned above to some extent. We weren’t using them for anything other than looking for and identifying surface contacts so it wasn’t a big deal to us.
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
The ANVIS-6s really changed a lot of those issues in a good way. You could actually have peripheral vision, the tubes were advanced enough that the world wasn't just a low-rez blurry mess when you looked at a bright light, and they had decent performance that on dark nights, they still were helpful.

I remember going onto the bridge while on a deployment and looking through their NVS that they had setup on the big-eyes. I think if you just looked through the unaided big-eyes and then smeared poop all over the lenses, you would see better. On my second deployment, while I was flying a takedown, my OIC (who was also working on his OOD letter) came up to the bridge with our -9s and let the ship's XO look through them while the ship was maneuvering to cover the boarding team. The XO's reaction was, "Wow, I can actually see everything with these!" Definitely night and day (see what I did there) compared to the older PVS systems.
 

Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
Yep- the ANVIS-6s were actually pretty good. Overwater LLL, away from the boat, was basically IMC like unaided flying. But except for when it was very, very dark like that, being able to see the natural horizon right in front of your eyeballs was a great improvement.

The SH-60 cockpit lighting kit was another story. Somehow nobody could figure out how to order blue, NVG-compatible, bulbs for the primary instrument backlighting so we had to put up with a hodgepodge of secondary lighting (front lighting) that worked OK on most of the primary instruments, except for the radar altimeter (which you hardly ever need for night, overwater helicopter flying). Instead we shone the Grimes light (utility light) from over/behind the pilots' shoulders. Two big WTF problems with that Grimes light- the color filter sucked and it leaked a lot of near-IR light that the NVGs would pick up (so could see a reflection of your lap in the windshield), and the lights were visible to the naked eye several miles away, thus removing any element of surprise from using the NVGs. I suspect that the NAVAIR people who weren't smart enough to work on Penguin got assigned to the 60B NVG adaptation kit... or maybe it was vice-versa. Just thinking about the incompetence still makes me mad... this is just one reason why veterans drink.

On the bright side, we didn't need the TAS-6 anymore for reading hull names and vessel registry during night SSC. And the added SA that Gator mentioned, for everyone in your crew about anything visible topside, that was the whole point.

Behind the boat, I missed the SGSI (colored glideslope lights) on final but the tradeoff of being able to actually see mom was a no-brainer. Then there are the fond memories of daily life in the smallboy navy- the blackshoes trying to configure the ship for NVG helo ops by apparently throwing random light switches, months into deployment, with no logic or reason (the nav lights off, good, wait, why did you just turn on the mast head light?? Now you just turned the nav lights back on! Now the nav lights again are off except the stern light, that's the worst one!), the heater glow of Seaman Schmuckatelli/Ensign Schmuckatelli's Marlboro down in the smoke pit. You're not so sly, we can see you down there! Bonus points if it was the unofficial smoke pit/radiation deck up on the roof of the hangar. Hope you want to have only daughters, Schmuckatelli!
 

Griz882

Frightening children with the Griz-O-Copter!
pilot
Contributor
Back in the late ‘80’s the Navy was still looking at HV-22’s for things like CSAR and in their mind big aircraft required “big” gear (where did those go?) The fleet felt the future was with FLIR not NVG which they saw as very limited in use. As I remember, the only place a Navy guy could get some real NVG training prior to 1991 was with Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One (MAWTS-1). The love affair with FLIR was, I feel (no fact to back this), based on the fact that the Navy thought the future for navy rotorywing aviation was going to be primarily benign, over-water missions that were better suited to FLIR systems. Vietnam was over, we were “never” going to fight a war like that again, and if Navy Attack was flying over the beach then the Marines would be there to get them.

The guy in the know from that era was Bryan Murphy, an old HC-16 and HC-11 hand.
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
The SH-60 cockpit lighting kit was another story. Somehow nobody could figure out how to order blue, NVG-compatible, bulbs for the primary instrument backlighting so we had to put up with a hodgepodge of secondary lighting (front lighting)

I'm one to shake a fist at NAVAIR like the rest of them, but apparently this was more complicated than it seemed. The eventual -60B NVG lighting mod that came to be required a bezel ON a bezel, which looked like a metal frame around an already existing instrument. That "new" bezel would house the NVG-compatible light that would shine on the instrument. I'm not sure if they were LED lights (hence the limited ramp up to distribution, because LEDs are crazy rare nowadays) or if they were just NVG-compatible incadescent bulbs (which I think is more likely).

The end result was better than the original setup, but there were still some "light gaps" on certain portions of certain instruments. Given why the AFCS cubes and VIDS cubes only needed bulb changes to make them compatible, I'm with you on not understanding why it was so hard for the post lights. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a misconception that "NVG compatible" was thought to mean that it HAS to be green. But I can't prove that failure in thought.
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
I'm one to shake a fist at NAVAIR like the rest of them, but apparently this was more complicated than it seemed. The eventual -60B NVG lighting mod that came to be required a bezel ON a bezel, which looked like a metal frame around an already existing instrument. That "new" bezel would house the NVG-compatible light that would shine on the instrument. I'm not sure if they were LED lights (hence the limited ramp up to distribution, because LEDs are crazy rare nowadays) or if they were just NVG-compatible incadescent bulbs (which I think is more likely).

The end result was better than the original setup, but there were still some "light gaps" on certain portions of certain instruments. Given why the AFCS cubes and VIDS cubes only needed bulb changes to make them compatible, I'm with you on not understanding why it was so hard for the post lights. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a misconception that "NVG compatible" was thought to mean that it HAS to be green. But I can't prove that failure in thought.
There was also the ship side of things that needed to be sorted out with respect to training and NVDs for the LSEs and HCOs and ship lighting updates. And if you've got a bone to pick with NAVAIR just wait to you meet NAVSEA.
 

RobLyman

- hawk Pilot
pilot
None
All of this stuff to change the color of lights in the Seahawk? Shhhh, don't tell anyone we have four MFDs with...wait for it...multi colored displays!
 

ChuckMK23

FERS and TSP contributor!
pilot
All of this stuff to change the color of lights in the Seahawk? Shhhh, don't tell anyone we have four MFDs with...wait for it...multi colored displays!
SH-60B's panel was steam gauges... other than the engine tapes
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
All of this stuff to change the color of lights in the Seahawk? Shhhh, don't tell anyone we have four MFDs with...wait for it...multi colored displays!
MFDs with a night/NVD setting really solved all of this nonsense. All the guys I knew who flew 60Bs would talk about fighting to get the lights just right, etc. In the 60S you just turned the MFDs to night and turned down the console lights. I don't think I ever used the map light.
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
All of this stuff to change the color of lights in the Seahawk? Shhhh, don't tell anyone we have four MFDs with...wait for it...multi colored displays!

Not so much the colors, just the compatibility...specifically of incandescent bulbs.

SH-60B's panel was steam gauges... other than the engine tapes

I'm pretty sure Rob is aware since he flew them. Ironically, the VIDS were not compatible unless the airframe was modded.

MFDs with a night/NVD setting really solved all of this nonsense. All the guys I knew who flew 60Bs would talk about fighting to get the lights just right, etc. In the 60S you just turned the MFDs to night and turned down the console lights.

It really isn't the MFDs, the Bravo had a MPD as well. As I mentioned, it was compatible lights for all of the other back lighting/buttons. It's not like I haven't ever flown a Romeo that didn't have an errant uncompatible bulb that was put in behind a cube/PBS.
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
There was also the ship side of things that needed to be sorted out with respect to training and NVDs for the LSEs and HCOs and ship lighting updates. And if you've got a bone to pick with NAVAIR just wait to you meet NAVSEA.

Meh. The NAVSEA lighting configs had been around for more than a decade before the Bravos started getting the NVG mods, and even then, it was only a few airframes that got them and it was as they were sun-downing (on the AC side anyway...the RC aircraft were getting them for other uses).

Ironically, the only time I've landed where I had a LSE with NVDs was on a Coast Guard ship.
 

insanebikerboy

Internet killed the television star
pilot
None
Contributor
All the guys I knew who flew 60Bs would talk about fighting to get the lights just right, etc.

In the 60F we’d turn the lights on the upper and lower consoles completely off and just count/remember where stuff was at. I still count out with my fingers the buttons on the cdu even though the 60H is NVD compatible.
 
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IKE

Nerd Whirler
pilot
In the 60F we’d turn the lights on the upper and lower consoles completely off and just count/remember where stuff was at. I still count out with my fingers the buttons on the cdu even though the 60H is NVD compatible.
The R/S cockpit/console require way to much looking down at the CDU.
 

RobLyman

- hawk Pilot
pilot
None
Not so much the colors, just the compatibility...specifically of incandescent bulbs.
It's been awhile. I remember one of the squadrons at Mayport getting a mod that included blue filters that were stuck on with Velcro, or the military's version, hook and pile. I never actually got a chance to fly NVGs in the Navy. I assumed it was more a color issue than bulb type. Speaking of color issues...in the 60M with new LED position lights, you experience impossible blindness caused by the port (left in the Army) position light that had two positions for the switch, but only one resulting brightness, BRIGHT. Our upgrade was replacement of the LED position lights with incandescent, which resulted in the DIM/BRIGHT switch actually producing dim and bright position lights.

One of my biggest complaints in the 60M is that the moving maps are predominantly white. So is the aircraft symbol on the map. So once you turn down the MFD to reduce the glow, reading the maps is difficult. The aircraft symbol, not always in the center, is also white. White on mostly white, dimmed in a dark cockpit = mostly useless.
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
It's been awhile. I remember one of the squadrons at Mayport getting a mod that included blue filters that were stuck on with Velcro, or the military's version, hook and pile.

There were two different mods. The first is as you describe. This was fleet-wide and consisted of lexan covers that went over the VIDS/PDU/Caution panel, as well as a flip down cover that went over the Master Caution stack (that everyone invariably forgot to flip down until on final at the boat and someone fires up the APU). They also replaced a bunch of the console bulbs with NVG-compliant bulbs. You would still get random light leaks from scratches in the paint on boxes or random other bulbs that were replaced with the wrong part. The post lights on the instrument panel had to be turned off and the only light was the Secondary lights under the glareshield, which is why you had to fly with the Grimes light on. You could see the RADALT, the AI, the ball, and the BDHI...but you couldn't see them all at the same time. I usually used my lip light to help with the ball.

There was then a second mod that came out towards the end of life of the airframe that had an additional bezel over each steam gauge, and that bezel had compatible lighting. Why they couldn't just put the bulb in the existing post lights, I don't know. They also replaced the VIDS/PDU bulbs and went from green/amber/yellow to all green (or at least mostly green...it's been a while). The lighting was mostly better, but only some finite number of airframes got the mod. A couple of our Reserve birds got the mod separately to be compatible with the HUD that we paid to have installed.

Either way, flying on goggles in the R/S is infinitely better.
 
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