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I remember back just before smartphones and car installations killed off the market, the standalone GPS my wife had was available with a John Cleese pack with him reading the directions.
Hilarious but not worth the money for how little we use GPS. When only 10% of your driving is to places to you arenāt already familiar with, no point. I only use Google Maps now for traffic really.
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Fired up the Apache after a brief hiatus andā¦what the hell is up with this? The IHADDS FLIR is practically useless now. Good luck with a zero vis landing if your head is tilted even slightly (which mine always is in VR for some reason).
Part of flying at night is having some way to see where the horizon is in relation to your aircraft, no? With the way it is now Iād have to fly with the ADI on one of the MFDs.
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YES!
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Funny enough. Brian Blessed voices one of the HCS Voicepacks!
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noticed that earlier as did the late great Paul Darrow, Avon from blakes 7ā¦
now that was a program that traumatised me as a kid
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Canāt you adjust the dead zone so you have to tilt your head more to make the view tilt?
Thatās what I did with TrackIR. I want to be blatantly sure when I tilt my head sideways, and not the rest of the time! My brain has an autoleveler for about 30 degrees before things start to look tilted, I expect the same from my sims!
Not in VR. My head always has a tilt for some reason. Not sure if itās the headset or my physiology.
But I thought the whole point of PNVS was to be able to fly visually at night. Doesnāt flying visually require a visible horizon? If I donāt know where the horizon is then how do I know which way to rotate my head to align PNVS with reality and not CFIT?
Interesting. Iāve noticed this too, with every HMD. Chalked it up to my irregular noggin.
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I donāt think anybody holds their head straight and still, thatās an illusion produced by the vestibulo-ocular reflex that causes the eyes to instinctively move in the opposite way that the head is moving, which is automatic and something weāre not consciously aware of (unless it stops working - highly nausea inducing! 
).
Which is why we have to stabilize VR footage to present it on the flatscreen 
Iām not sure how the AH-64 PNVS handles the roll input in reality - the sensor itself seems only to do pitch and yaw. I guess you could do it in software, Iām just not sure what the actual aircraft does. In either case, it might be nice to have an option to stabilize it to the head as it was previously just to avoid VR sicknessā¦ but there must be a reason crews seem to use night vision googles at night sometimes instead of the PNVS?
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Changelog from May has this:
- Fixed: PNVS and TADS video underlay in helmet display should not be roll-stabilised to horizon.
Last I flew at night in August it was roll-stabilized to horizon. Apparently itās not supposed to be, and that was fixed between August and now without mention in the changelog. And it was roll-stabilized for the better part of what, two years?
Which still doesnāt make sense to me. When the pilotās head is tilted, the PNVS (and technically HUD symbology as a whole) is giving wrong horizon data to the pilot. How is this not a Spatial-D hazard? In VR I find it absolutely unusuable unless thereās a full moon illuminating the horizon enough for me to visually adjust my head tilt so the PNVS matches properly.
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Iām guessing it is a spatial D hazard, but according to multiple devs on the ED forums this is how it is in the real airframe.
Hence the crews using NVGs Iām guessing!
Edit: found a survey of Apache pilots who used the system in OIF and a surprisingly large number reported suffering disorientation āsometimesā while using the headset!
Apache Aviator Visual Experiences with the IHADSS Helmet-Mounted Display in Operation Iraqi Freedom
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Now I want to know what night SOP is/was. Only flying when thereās enough moonlight to visually confirm horizon? Having the ADI on one of the MFDs wouldnāt help that much because I have no idea what ā20 degreesā translates to in my head tilt.
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And this brings us another problem with DCS - when using NVGs the sim accurately blurs the cockpit displays because the cans are focused outside the cockpit, as they should be.
But in reality, I understand one can wear the cans such that one can glance down under the cans just with oneās eyes to see the instrument panel.
I guess, since we have such poor FOV in VR headsets, I have to bind a button on the stick to toggle the NVGs on and off to use them properly? I havenāt tried in the Apache yet, but I recall it being so annoying in the Hornet that I preferred to keep using the JHMCS at night!
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I havenāt tried with the Apache, but in fixed wing modules with my Quest 2 I have enough vertical FOV to peek beneath the NVGs to see at least a few gauges. One of the major complaints I have about every headset other than the Q2 is that all of them have poor vertical FOV in favor of wide horizontal FOV. This completely ruins NVG and steam-gauge flying experience for me, so I pray my Q2 never dies.
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Ah, thatās good to know!
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I havenāt flown the Apache since this changed and I probably should before commenting. But what the heck! Iām caffeinated and opinionated this morning. Hereās my theory. You, the pilot, know when your head is leaning. Thatās on you. The gyros āknowā when the helicopter is leaning. Thatās on the helicopter. The PNVS is most useful (and probably safest) when it is displaying only the helicopter stuff, leaving the āyouā movements for the pilot to sort on his own.
However the designers ultimately decided on this, the risk must have been clear. With enough data HUDs are great for instrument flight. The Apache has no HUD. It has something better. But that better solution needs to augment the pilotās SA, not muddle it. Otherwise bad things will happen. By taking away roll stabilization, the designers uncoupled head roll from helicopter roll.
Sitting here on my couch, typing, this makes perfect sense 
I donāt 
Major leans yes. A slight lean, like anything up to 5 degrees I guess, I have no awareness of leaning. Now without a visible horizon and maybe the aircraft is at an odd attitude, I donāt know which way to lean to unf::k myself 
Yes, as the TADS/PNVS is fixed to the nose and only tilts and pans, it makes perfect sense it will always match the heloās orientation.
I would think youād have a similar issue using any system that doesnāt have a rolling head like a Litening. Maverick cameras donāt roll inside the missile, right? That would make guidance far too complicated, so if you roll the plane while looking through its sensor it shouldnāt be roll stabilized either.
The outside world being tilted so much I think is just a matter of calibrating the VR to match your headās orientation. I always recenter TrackIR when I get in the cockpit because by that point the reflector on my head may have shifted or i could have moved forward/aft since last centering.
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Itās not an issue of calibration. Look to one side and up or down, even slightly. In the process your head will be tilted, and you wonāt be aware of this tilt unless you happen to be comparing the PNVS image with the visible horizon (if you have one). Iāve noticed that my head tends to tilt forward in relation to my body when I look left or right, and taking out that tilt strains the muscles on the aft right/aft left of my neck.
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