Night Vision Is Finally Awesome Again

A wider field of view is good, and high resolution is good. But the input optics are mounted above the user's forehead, which seems like it would cause a problem with the HUD, since there would be a vertical shift in the eye box between normal HUD use without the goggles and nighttime use with the goggles. It is necessary for a fighter jet pilot to have his head fairly well-centered in the HUD eyebox since the HUD is boresighted with the jet's weapon systems.

I wonder, too, what is the user actually looking at -- a pair of miniature displays? If so, how are the images from screens that close to his eyeballs actually brought to focus on his retinas?

The disparity of the cameras are no issue and compensated for via computer.

I am not as well versed with imaging techniques for helmet mounted displays, but the displays actually project the image into the eye. Lenses are used to set the apparent focal point.

Military HUDs use symbology to cue the pilot when a solution for a SHOOT is correct. For instance, the F-16 uses what is called a vortex funnel for the gun. It looks like two converging lines that sway like a kite's tail. A symbol (I think it is a diamond surrounded by a box) on the HUD represents the locked target. When the target is correctly aligned the word SHOOT flashes on the display. The targeting computer computes the bullet trajectory based on the own aircraft vector and the target vector.

The same is true for a missile mode strike.

The F-35 does away with the HUD and replaces it with helmet mounted displays. Cameras located on the wings and fuselage are used to give a heads down view for the pilot so he can see "through" the skin of the aircraft. For instance, looking down at your knees will give you a view under the aircraft as if you were looking with X-Ray eyes, so to speak.

Eye tracking and head tracking make this happen. Pilots can simply look at a target or its virtual image through the helmet mounted display and lock that target with the weapon computer by looking in any direction. It is no longer necessary to align the nose of the aircraft at a target to lock it in.

"Awesome again"? Was night vision awesome in the past, with some sort of non-awesome gap between then and now?