[headdie]

is the end is on it's way for large transparent cockpit canopies?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19372299

[Thaeris]

No - there's a thing called redundancy which effective combat systems tend to be designed with. Over-reliance on emergent technologies has had a tendancy of producing less-than-reliable combat capabilities, and the F-4 Phantom is perhaps the best example of this.

I would not expect to see a manned fighter craft which employs significantly reduced visibility, corrected for in electronics, within the next 30 years.

[Dragon]

If it goes on like that for some more time, ArmA IV will play like a more realistic version of Crysis. Powered armor, invisible cockpit, infantry HUD... There's stuff being developed that be only heard about before in games.
That aside, I wonder how MFDs work with this helmet. Making them usable would require some interesting trickery on the designer's part.
As for the glass canopies, I don't thing they're going anywhere soon. Considering planes aren't really armored, there's no benefit to hiding the cockpit.

[Thaeris]

Drag, actually. Canopies tend to break up the aerodynamics of an aircraft to some degree, so removing or reducing the canopy may definately grant a boost in performance.

[Nuke]

this is just a natural evolution of small high resolution cameras and head mounted hud displays. and if the system fails you still have a glass canopy to look through.

the reason your canopy is a big bubble is to give pilots really good vision of the sky, obscuring as little of it as possible. so up till now a big bulbous bubble canopy was the only way to do that. if we start using camera systems and they turn out to be quite reliable, they might design future aircraft with canopies made for better aerodynamics rather than visibility, and it would only be used as a backup when the camera system failed.

that said i dont really think canopies were all that much of a hindrance to aerodynamics, since its essentially a big aerodynamic fairing that you can form into any shape you desire for optimal aerodynamic performance.

[headdie]

there is the possibility of moving the pilot closer to the centre of the fighter with the reduced need for visibility.

[Mika]

I wonder who's the first one to claim lag or lack of FPS on this one?

Also, how much weight does that thing add to the helmet?

[headdie]

I wonder who's the first one to claim lag or lack of FPS on this one?

Also, how much weight does that thing add to the helmet?

probably very little over existing helmet displays as most of the weight will be in the camera system

[FreeSpaceFreak]

that said i dont really think canopies were all that much of a hindrance to aerodynamics, since its essentially a big aerodynamic fairing that you can form into any shape you desire for optimal aerodynamic performance.

Oh they are, they're a major hindrance to area ruling. Which means they tend to produce a lot of drag in the transonic/supersonic regime, and many aerodynamicists would love to see them gone.

As stated higher up, transparent canopies won't be going anywhere (thanks to their reliability), but I could see a reduction in bulbousness: i.e. going back to the more streamlined canopies as seen on the MIG-25 (see pic). The camera system could then account for lost visibility.

That said, the next clean-sheet fighter aircraft will probably be conceived around 2030 (unless the US Navy's F/A-XX magically gets funding for a clean-sheet design), and I doubt that it will still be manned.

[Nuke]

yea when you get to the point where the pilot sits in a windowless armored compartment and wears an hmd, you might as well stick him in a bunker on the ground instead.

i kinda had an idea for an augmented reality system where you could look around inside a cockpit see all the physical controls and whatnot, but in a few areas, like where the windows would be, you would have greenscreen or whatever. and the system would overlay those areas with data from cameras and sensors distributed over the aircraft. your ar goggles would have cameras allowing you to interact with physical elements in your cockpit. this would be ideal for hypersonic aircraft where windows are a hindrance. it could also be used in tanks and simulators and what have you. it would be better if we developed screens that let you toggle pixels between opaque and transparent. in opaque mode you have a standard lcd screen. but in transparent mode you have a regular pair of sunglasses. nit sure if that kind of system is possible or not. john carmack was talking about screens with depth of feild capability, which would make it even awesomer. **** WINDOWS!

[headdie]

this would be a massive boost for drivers or armoured vehicles

[Unknown Target]

One of the big concepts behind a game I'm developing is that a lot of the aircraft are neuro-controlled by a pilot laying in an armored pod inside the center of the aircraft.

[Scotty]

yea when you get to the point where the pilot sits in a windowless armored compartment and wears an hmd, you might as well stick him in a bunker on the ground instead.

Lag time is gonna keep this from happening for at least a few years, and more probably a few decades, after we reach this point.

[NGTM-1R]

Also those pesky LOS/electronic warfare issues.

[BloodEagle]

Also those pesky LOS/electronic warfare issues.

I can imagine some pretty amusing incidents involving pirate radio.

[Scourge of Ages]

Lag time is gonna keep this from happening for at least a few years, and more probably a few decades, after we reach this point.

Well the technology can at least help improve the current and next gen of drones. Isn't the current set up for a Predator drone a few small, fuzzy monitors and a HOTAS?

[Klaustrophobia]

yeah, but they aren't flying it.  they are directing it.  giving it targets, telling it where to go, moving the cameras and such.

[Nuke]

latency is a huge issue. its better to let the onboard control systems handle everything than trying to deal with the latency and fly it yourself. its more fun to click on the terrorist on the screen and watch him blow up. thats gotta give the operator one hell of a god complex.