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Pilots discuss their experience flying the F-35 Lighting II during an LMCO webinar


Click on the image below to hear pilots discuss their experience flying the F-35 Lighting II during an LMCO webinar:

 

Quotes about VSI’s F-35 HMDS from LMCO F-35 Test Pilots Alan Norman and Bill Gigliotti:

  1. “It always gives you that outside world view so, what that gives the pilot is the opportunity to look through the aircraft essentially and Al and I have both flown this and immediately fallen in love with the capability and the idea of looking through the cock pit looking through the airplane, seeing the ground seeing a target below the airplane and being able to place another sensor on it is just unheard of and the F-35 is the first and only aircraft to do that. “ – Bill Gigliotti

  2. “This helmet is amazing. The things that it allows us to do are amazing and what people have to realize is that this is an integrated system with a heads up display that we can move around anyway we go anyway we look.” – Alan Norman

  3. “We get to see a 360 degrees spherical view of the world around us and honestly it brings night into day if you will- it turns night into day and gives us just a background view of what is up and what is down and which is the right way to go and in addition, the night vision camera is integrated into this so no longer do we have to wear goggles so all those things combined really are a good news story about the helmet.” – Alan Norman

  4. “This plane is so second nature to fly that after flying once you fall in love with it and that helmet is one of those systems that is like that.”- Bill Gigliotti

  5. “I was just telling someone yesterday the view that you get is amazing I go back and forth with one day flying the F-35 and one day flying the F-16 and even with the wide HUD on the F-16 its too little I have to move my head around to see the HUD it does not compared to this big view that I get if nothing else but a HUD image with DAS imagery and Night Vision Imagery- so all those things are very good.”- Alan Norman

  6. “I think that if you ask any of us that is flying with the airplane would we rather fly with the helmet or not have the helmet were all going to tell you that we love the helmet and would rather have the helmet.”- Alan Norman

  7. “You immediately assimilate to it when you fly with it the first time and say wow that structure in front of my face is not there and now I have this- when I fly the F-16 I say man, I miss my F-35 helmet.” – Alan Norman

  8. It’s an 8/20 continuous heads down display it is massive and incredibly clear and I have never flown an airplane with a display that is this nice to look at when your heads down the cockpit in fact last night we flew out first night sortie and one of our test pilots said it was one of the best night lighting he has ever seen on a fighter airplane so that is very positive with the which way we are headed. – Bill Gigliotti

 

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