F 35 Joint Strike Fighter: X Ray helmets, puerile information, for $200 billion

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The F35 does have some chutzpah as an idea. It’s carrying a lot of new technology, even if the airframe does look like an up gunned X15 series with wings. The hard sell has generated a lot of interest, even from professionals. The F 35 is a fifth generation, “fly by wire” plane. That means the level of automation allows the plane to do a lot of the work.

It’s also one of the reasons for the new helmet, which handles a lot of sensor images and relays them to the pilot. Multiple night vision sensor ability even allows the pilot to look “through” the plane, at the ground, using computer adapted sensor imagery.

The helmet is full face cover. Really, it looks like an asymmetrical old sci-fi helmet, with two green eyes staring out.

The Sydney Morning Herald article reads very much like an ad for the helmet, but this will give you an idea of what else it can do:

“Weighing approximately 1.5 kilograms, the new helmet will also incorporate "first look, first shot" technology used in earlier models that allows pilots to line-up targets simply by looking at them.
Previously, pilots would have to manoeuvre the aircraft so its nose was pointing at the target.

In order to see the visor visuals properly, every pilot will need to wear a made-to-measure helmet that's been shaped to the exact dimension of a person's head.”

Or to put the last sentence another way, “It works, but we’re too damn lazy to standardize the thing, or add some Velcro.”

The helmet is being tested by the RAF. Australia, Canada, Italy and Turkey are also buying F35s.

One of the reasons for the enthusiasm for the F35 may be that the US isn’t selling its F22 Raptors to anyone else, and they have at least some of the capabilities of the F35. Meaning it’s F35, or go look for something else to replace the F18s. This is interesting, because if you look at Raptor, its morphology is very much like F35’s, even down to tail configuration.

This touching display of amity might be a pain in the butt, particularly for those of us in the process of helping America fight her wars.

But on the positive side, who could bear to live without the eternal mystery of US military costing?

It’d be like Sesame Street being canceled.

The manufacturers of the helmet supplied the interesting news that the thing is being manufactured in such low volumes that a unit price isn’t mentionable at this stage…

If you hear something about the plane having to be home before midnight, don’t be too surprised.