Friday, August 31, 2018

A Six-Year-Old Bug In The F-35 Fighter Helmet Is Close To Being Solved

U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Escher, Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA-101) operations officer, dons his helmet prior to flying an Air Force F-35A Dec. 6, 2016, at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. (U.S. Air Force/ Staff Sgt. Peter Thompson)

Defense Tech/Military.com: F-35 Helmet Bug Means Only Expert Pilots Can Do Night Carrier Landings

ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN -- The Navy is close to fixing a technical bug in the sophisticated F-35 Joint Strike Fighter helmet that amounts to a dangerous hindrance for aviators attempting to land in the black of night on a moving aircraft carrier.

F-35C pilots describe the bug as a green glow created by the LED technology in the Generation III helmet-mounted display, which spills over and prevents them from seeing a carrier's lights at night.

"At night on carriers is about the darkest you can get when there is no moon," Cmdr. Tommy "Bo" Locke, commander of Navy Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 125 told a group of defense reporters in the flight hangar on the Abraham Lincoln Monday.

Read more ....

Update #1: There's a problem with the F-35's $400,000 helmet that's interfering with an essential part of the jet's mission (Business Insider).
Update #2: The Navy Is Fixing a Serious, Six-Year-Old Bug in the F-35 Fighter Helmet (Popular Mechanics)

WNU Editor: I am still trying to get around the idea that the F-35 helmet costs $400,000 per unit.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

6 years because of an LED?
These people are endangering national security with such incompetence. .sorry. .6 years wtf.

Anonymous said...

It was not because of the difficulty of the problem that it took so long to fix this issue. It was because there were six years of WORSE problems that they have had to jerry-rig workarounds for.

What a disaster.

Anonymous said...

Considering that it took Ford 2 1/2 years to finally fix my recalled airbag I guess that’s not too bad.

Anonymous said...

It's all fun and games until we enter a war with a near peer or same peer adversary. We cannot just let these overruns pass without consequences. It's a matter of national security. How come this program has wasted several dozens of billions of tax dollars but there's no accountability? No one got fired. The bosses of the companies involved are making a killing. Wtf is going on with oversight????