I managed some range work on a moonless night but good lord is the PNVS disorienting. Part of the problem is that my brain is not getting proper signals from my neck muscles. I noticed I have a significant right lean tendency that I only notice and can correct by referencing my forward dash. When looking left/right, the PNVS image tilt often disagrees with the direction I think I’m tilting my head. It’s like my brain only understands visual cues for head tilt. The OBS footage is actually kinda hilarious because it’s like those 360 GoPro vids where the world spins around the camera centerpoint.
For slow and methodical flying and shooting it’s fine, but once things start shooting back at me all bets are off.
Not sure if that will help my brain-neck linkage too much, but I’m starting to think I may be expecting too much from the system. During the day I can do extreme maneuvering between trees, and I assumed PNVS would allow for purely visual flying at night like NVGs do, making such flying possible at night too. But with the roll-axis limitation that doesn’t seem to be the case, and real world PNVS flying is more conservative?
If only our DCS eyes could become acclimated to the dark. My left VR lens has a slightly higher gamma and/or brighter backlight than the other lens at night in DCS for some reason.
I did find in my researching that there are other reports saying the US Army allowed crews to start using helmet mounted binocular aviation NVGs on operations due to issues with the PNVS causing disorientation…
Not sure what the UK do. I believe the Thales integrated night vision and targeting used on the ARH Tiger doesn’t have this issue - we’ll see (probably way way later) if the AH-64E that we’re replacing the Tiger with here incorporates NightOwl or if they just fix the PNVS…
In pancake I have no issue with the PNVS as it there’s no roll issue to contend with. Your “head” moves just like the TADS does largely. You might see about pressing your head back into your headrest to have some kind of fixed reference point where the visual horizon and PNVS horizon match up.
There’s also a slightly misleading image, pehaps. Kind of like the A-10. All of its real-world action has been curb stomping technologically inferior enemies. That’s not to say it isn’t a good platform, it’s just that peer or near-peer conflict survival rates are probably much lower than what we’re lead to believe they are based on past employment. I assume night combat CFIT would be part of that.
Also the kind of flying we engage in is probably exactly the opposite of what a competent military pilot planning a mission wants to have happen. Low, slow, steady, and expose just long enough to get your missiles on target then back the way you came. Just like an infantry anti armor ambush, the only people who knew you were there are the patrols they send out at daylight to find the remains of the tanks you killed.
