Another helo vs the world thread (moved from helmets)

[insanebikerboy]

Day HUD. I'll just say I LOVE my night HUD. I've never flown with a day HUD, though apparently one is coming.

Is a day HUD essential? No. But it'd be awful nice.

I think it got buried in an earlier post but the Day HUD is pretty sweet. My only gripe is the way it's set up now it can only be worn over the left eye. I personally prefer it on the right side of my helmet.

I wore the night HUD.... in the RAG. We try to push studs going through level II or early III to wear it (or at least tactics wants us to push it), but I just never saw the utility. Granted, my green time was sort of the opposite from putting ordnance on target, but I never felt the need to don that abortion of a HUD and find it actually annoying and too long to set up.

The new model is basically a disc that fits over the end of the goggles. It's not the abomination like the long tube version. Much lighter and nicer.



Day HUD for anyone that may be interested. Yes, I blurred my face.

 

[MasterBates]

I thought your face just broke the camera..

 

[insanebikerboy]

I thought your face just broke the camera..

It did but I needed to make myself feel better

 

[phrogdriver]

I think it got buried in an earlier post but the Day HUD is pretty sweet. My only gripe is the way it's set up now it can only be worn over the left eye. I personally prefer it on the right side of my helmet.



The new model is basically a disc that fits over the end of the goggles. It's not the abomination like the long tube version. Much lighter and nicer.



Day HUD for anyone that may be interested. Yes, I blurred my face.
View attachment 10961

Left eye? Doesn't that mean eye dominance issues for most (cue Firebirds Nick Cage with pantyhose periscope montage)?

The long tube version is fine for NVGs. My only gripe is that the cannon plug is so robust it's an egress hazard.

The night HUD is FUCKING MONEY!!! If you don't see its value flying at low altitude over low contrast/texture terrain/water, you're crazy.

The value of the day HUD, in my opinion, is being able to maintain the same outside scan in both day and night, i.e. not having to have a different scan pattern day/night.

 

[Lawman]

Left eye? Doesn't that mean eye dominance issues for most (cue Firebirds Nick Cage with pantyhose periscope montage)?

Im left eye dominant and I had no issues with learning the bag. Though I did spend a good portion of flightschool with panties around, on, or near my head.

 

[RobLyman]

I find this whole dicussion humorous. Back in the late 80s during Ernest Will when a legitimate over water threat existed and was countered by "non-organic" helos, we were promised forward firing weapons and the SH-60R. How long did it take for the Romeo to hit the fleet? It's sad, but I can't help but chuckle as I read this thread.

Oh, and night HUD is great.

 

[BACONATOR]

I think it got buried in an earlier post but the Day HUD is pretty sweet. My only gripe is the way it's set up now it can only be worn over the left eye. I personally prefer it on the right side of my helmet.

The new model is basically a disc that fits over the end of the goggles. It's not the abomination like the long tube version. Much lighter and nicer.

I'm totally open-minded and it sounds like this new day model is vastly improved, but is it as obnoxiously lengthy a set up as the night HUD? Forgive me if it's been years since I've worn it, but I recall the night HUD NOT matching the readouts of the actual aircraft instruments and having to take the time to actually calibrate each of the readouts (RADALT, maybe A/S and something else?). I never understood where the disconnect between the instruments and the HUD readout was? Does it not just pull the data from the DTC too? Was my HUD just especially jacked up? Either way, there's little utility in having to spend 30 minutes in the chocks manually calibrating the readouts just for a little assist in DVE/unprep landings.

That being said, if it's just a matter of plug and play, it would prove invaluable in DVE landings or low-vis, low illum unpreps. Especially out in the sandy places. Also, how are the de-clutter options? If it's much more user-friendly, I could see some real benefits from using it.

 

[BACONATOR]

I find this whole dicussion humorous. Back in the late 80s during Ernest Will when a legitimate over water threat existed and was countered by "non-organic" helos, we were promised forward firing weapons and the SH-60R. How long did it take for the Romeo to hit the fleet? It's sad, but I can't help but chuckle as I read this thread.

Oh, and night HUD is great.

Yes, the acquisition side of the Navy (military?) runs at the blistering speed of the land tortoise, but I DID see the forward firing machine gun (M-197?) and rocket pod modular attachments for the bat-wings of the MH-60S at NHA and, allegedly, our community will start taking delivery of them within a year or so. Looked pretty sweet, and may actually prove that the bat-wing modular design of the 60-R/S is worth its salt.

Like I've said before, I may never do the tactics we train for, but I guess it bodes well for the future of Naval Helicopter aviation and the paradigm shift from HC support choppering to a bona fide combat role. No dog in this fight, but it looks sweet.

 

[hscs]

BARALT should be the only one that you should have to calibrate, so the system may have issues.

I think the problem with the set up is that people have different preferences - squadron should standardize. Even then, the setup never took more than a minute for me. Practice will build the proficiency.

I never liked the night HUD until I was at a squadron that forced me (via SOP) to use it. Now, you can have said HUD when you take it out of my cold dead hands. The night HUD has been critical for me in numerous DVE landings and numerous critical events in the TERF environment (both as PAC and PNAC), I haven't seen the day HUD but am excited that it will offer the same capability.

As for everything else, I feel that we spend to much time trying to find a way into the fight rather than focusing on being the experts of overwater. I think the CAS mission is a classic example - who is going to call on a USN H-60 to do overland CAS for them when you have USMC and Army. Seems to me we came up with CAS as a way to get off the boat to get into the fight. I am going to go there (and hopefully Lumpy doesn't throw a doctrine book at me), but this sounds like classic Mission Creep to me.

We are spending numerous hours in the aircraft and the classrooms/RRs trying to learn overland CAS - and to me, IMHO, we need to refocus that energy into being more proficient in our defined missions.

 

[helolumpy]

Either way, there's little utility in having to spend 30 minutes in the chocks manually calibrating the readouts just for a little assist in DVE/unprep landings.

I agree that having to set the HUD up for each flight was a pain, my squadron had overwater and overland HUD settings programmed for Modes 1 and 2.
This way there was an 'approved' setting already configured for everyone to use.
If you REALLY wanted to customize your settings, you could use the other two modes to save your settings.

In my expirience most folks didn't use the HUD because:
A. They were unfamiliar with it since they never used it
B. For those who have tried it would complain that it took too long to set up
C. It's really not needed for night overwater SAR/PG missions.

 

[RotorHead04]

C. It's really not needed for night overwater SAR/PG missions.

LOL. This is where I first became a believer in it! Low light in the D trying to ensure I was still in the Starboard D and not the Port D (Gators have a habit of not telling the SAR helo when they are turning). Also found it useful for low work over water so that I could actually look at the "survivor" as the flying pilot while maintaining parameters.

One man's garbage ...

 

[hscs]

Gators have a habit of not telling the SAR helo when they are turning.

Neither do the CVNs.....

 

[phrogpilot73]

The night HUD is FUCKING MONEY!!! If you don't see its value flying at low altitude over low contrast/texture terrain/water, you're crazy.

Are we talking the ANVS HUD? If so, call me crazy. I was an NSI in the fleet, so I wore it A LOT. I'm an NSI in the reserves, and for my recert - I had to talk my instructor through it (even though I wasn't wearing it). TERF/NAV route? Money. Externals? Money. Cals? Not so much.

 

[Gatordev]

LOL. This is where I first became a believer in it! Low light in the D trying to ensure I was still in the Starboard D and not the Port D (Gators have a habit of not telling the SAR helo when they are turning). Also found it useful for low work over water so that I could actually look at the "survivor" as the flying pilot while maintaining parameters.

One man's garbage ...

Maybe this is a bigger/different issue, but why am I (or anyone else) wrong for doing a mission with a certain set of tools that might be different than how you do them (and still be within various SOPs)? More tools may not always mean better for everyone. I think this might be a corollary to what Lumpy was saying.

One example is the Flight Display of the new -60s. For me, it's an absolute mess. There's good information there, but it's not very well organized. Other people say they don't mind it. Another example is landing on a small boy at night. Personally, I don't mind goggles on the approach, as they're usually helpful. But if I had my choice, I'd rip them off once I was over the deck. I find them more of a hinderance over the deck. Other guys dig 'em over the deck. Neither one of us are wrong, it's just what works for each of us.

 

[bert]

The FD's are a mess, but some folks will have never seen anything better.

hscs has it right, but the problem is that senior folks see the overland missions as a route to achieve parity with the jet guys (not that we would even come close) while the junior guys get all excited about joining the fight.

It always seemed to me that somewhere along the way we lost the ability to take pride in being good at the missions that big Navy actually wants us to do.